Adultery Verdict

In a landmark judgment in 2018, the Supreme Court scrapped the 150-year old adultery law.

Supreme Court has struck down unconstitutional Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes adultery.

SC also declared Section 198 of the Criminal Procedure Code as unconstitutional, which deals with the procedure for filing a complaint for the offence of adultery. According to this, the husband alone could complain against adultery while an adulterous man’s wife had no such right.

Adultery

  • The act of adultery is a voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than that person's current spouse or partner.

Supreme Court's Observations

  • Violative of Article 21 (Right to life and personal liberty) and Article 14 (Right to equality).
  • The court observed that two individuals may part if one cheats, but to attach criminality to infidelity is going too far. How married couples deal with adultery is absolutely a matter of privacy.
  • Besides, there is no data to back claims that abolition of adultery as a crime would result in “chaos in sexual morality” or an increase of divorce.
  • Any provision of law affecting individual dignity and equality of women invites the wrath of the Constitution. It’s time to say that a husband is not the master of wife. Legal sovereignty of one sex over other sex is wrong.
  • However, if any aggrieved spouse ended her life because of her partner’s adulterous relation, it could be treated as an abetment (encouraging) to suicide if evidence was produced.
  • Section 497 is based on the Doctrine of Coverture. This doctrine, not recognised by the Constitution, holds that a woman loses her identity and legal right with marriage, is violative of her fundamental rights.
  • Marriage does not mean ceding autonomy of one to the other. Ability to make sexual choices is essential to human liberty. Even within private zones, an individual should be allowed her choice.

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