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Home > News > India News > Article > SC strikes down anti adultery law says its no more a crime

SC strikes down anti-adultery law, says it's no more a crime

Updated on: 28 September,2018 09:32 AM IST  |  New Delhi
Agencies |

It also mentions the law dented individuality of women and treated them as "chattel of husbands"

SC strikes down anti-adultery law, says it's no more a crime

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Declaring that adultery is not a crime, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a colonial-era anti-adultery law, saying it was unconstitutional, dented the individuality of women and treated them as "chattel of husbands". Activists welcomed the judgment and said the archaic law should have been dumped a long time ago to keep pace with the rest of the world.


The apex court's five-judge constitution bench was unanimous in striking down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code dealing with the offence of adultery, holding it as manifestly arbitrary, archaic and violative of the rights to equality and equal opportunity to women.


A five-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra said unequal treatment of women invites the wrath of the Constitution.


Doing away with a colonial-era law
Oct 10, 2017: NRI from Kerala, Joseph Shine, files a plea in SC challenging the constitutional validity of section 497 of IPC.
Dec 8: SC agrees to examine the constitutional validity of the law.
Jan 5 2018: SC refers to a five-judge constitution bench the plea challenging the validity of the law.
Jul 11: Centre tells SC striking down section 497 will destroy the institution of marriage.
Aug 2: SC says penal provision on adultery is apparently violative of the right to equality under the Constitution.
Aug 8: Centre favours the retention of penal law on adultery.
Aug 8: SC reserves verdict on pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the penal law.

What is section 497?
Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person, whom he knows to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both.

'SC's adultery verdict progressive'
The apex court's judgment received kudos from leading women advocates, who dubbed it as a "strong" and "progressive" decision on gender equality. Senior advocate Rebecca John and lawyers Aishwarya Bhati and Menaka Guruswamy termed as correct the SC's observation that the adultery law dented the individuality of women.

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