New Delhi, May 26 (IANS): Penal provisions on rape have been misused by some women who develop consensual physical relationship with their lovers and after the breakup file false rape cases to force them to marry them, the Delhi High Court has said.

Justice Kailash Gambhir said rape law was often misused by women as weapon for "vengeance and vendetta" to harass and blackmail their male friends by filing false cases to extort money and to force them to marry them.

"Many of the cases are being reported by those women who have consensual physical relationship with a man but when the relationship breaks due to one reason or the other, the women use the law as a weapon for vengeance and personal vendetta to extort money and sometimes even to force the boy to get married to them," the court said in a recent order.

"Out of anger and frustration, they tend to convert such consensual sex as an incident of rape, defeating the very purpose of the provision," Justice Gambhir said, while hearing a case related to a woman's complaint against her lover in Rani Bagh area July 13, 2012.

The rape complaint was filed against Rohit Chauhan, who was allegedly in a relationship with the woman for three years.

The court said that in many cases the woman first agrees to have consensual sex but she files a rape case against her boyfriend when the relationship breaks up in order to "force him to get married, making not only mockery of the marriage but also inflate the statistics of rape cases".

A trial court must cautiously examine the intentions of a complainant girl to find out whether the rape allegation was genuine or had malafide motives.

"There is a clear demarcation between rape and consensual sex and in cases where such controversies are involved, the court must very cautiously examine the intentions of both the individuals involved and to check if even the girl, on the other hand, is genuine or had malafide motives."

"Cases like these not only make a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage but also inflate the statistics of rape cases which further deprecates our own society," the court said.