New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday delivered its judgment on the constitutional validity of the penal provisions of adultery saying that unequal treatment of women invites the wrath of the Constitution.
What is section 497?
Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code( IPC) means sexual intercourse by a man with a married woman without her husband's consent amounts to adultery. The man is held liable for the crime. The law did not allow to punish the adulterous woman.
Also, under the law, a wife doesn't have any right to prosecute her adulterous husband or the other woman involved.
How is it discriminatory?
The law is regarded as discriminatory as it punishes only a married man for extramarital sexual relationship with a married woman.
The Joseph Shine petition
A petition filed by Keralite Joseph Shine challenged Section 497 of the IPC, which leads to prosecution of a man in an adulterous relationship with a married woman, but lets off the woman.
He also challenged Section 198 which allowed an aggrieved husband of a married woman in adulterous relationship to lodge a complaint against the man, but not the aggrieved wife of the adulterous man.
The Supreme Court verdict
The apex court is dealing with section 497 of the 158-year-old Indian Penal Code said: "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery."
The court said any provision treating women with inequality is not constitutional and it's time to say that husband is not the master of woman.
The CJI said section 497 of the IPC is manifestly arbitrary the way it deals with women.
The bench said adultery can be treated as civil wrong for dissolution of marriage.
Presently, the offence of adultery entails a maximum punishment of five years, or with fine, or both.
The hearing in the case by the bench, which also comprised justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, went on for six days and had commenced on August 1.
The Centre had favoured retention of penal law on adultery, saying that it is a public wrong which causes mental and physical injury to the spouse, children and the family.
"It is an action willingly and knowingly done with the knowledge that it would hurt the spouse, the children and the family. Such intentional action which impinges on the sanctity of marriage and sexual fidelity encompassed in marriage, which forms the backbone of the Indian society, has been classified and defined by the Indian State as a criminal offence in exercise of its Constitution powers," the Centre had said.
On January 5, the apex court had referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the plea challenging the validity of the penal law on adultery.
The court had taken a prima facie view that though the criminal law proceeded on "gender neutrality", the concept was absent in Section 497.
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