Adultery law archaic, treated women as chattle, demeaned their status: Justice Nariman

The law penalising adultery was utterly irrational, archaic and demeaned the status of a woman by treating her as a chattle, the Supreme Court Thursday said and struck down the penal provision making it a criminal offence.

Justice R F Nariman, who was part of the five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, said for the purpose of Section 497 (punishment for adultery) of IPC, a woman was treated as chattle, making clear that the provision discriminated against women on grounds of sex only.

The bench unanimously declared that adultery was not a crime and struck down the anti-adultery law, saying it was unconstitutional as it dented the individuality of women and was violative of rights to equality and equal opportunity to them.

Besides this, the top court also held Section 198 (prosecution of offences against marriage) of the CrPC as constitutionally infirm saying it was a blatantly discriminatory provision in which the husband alone or somebody on his behalf who can file a complaint against man for this offence.

Section 497 of the 158-year-old IPC says: "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."