India, Feb. 24 -- The Orissa high court has quashed rape charges filed by a woman who was in a relationship with a police sub-inspector for nine years, observing that non-culmination of the relationship into marriage may be a source of personal grievance but not a crime.

"The law does not extend its protection to every broken promise nor does it impose criminality upon every failed relationship. The petitioner and the prosecutrix entered into a relationship in 2012, when both were competent, consenting adults, capable of making their own choices, of exercising their own will, and of shaping their own futures. That the relationship did not culminate in marriage may be a source of personal grievance, but the failure of love is not a crime,...