Adultery not a criminal offence, husband not the master: Supreme Court quashes Section 497

In its landmark judgement pronounced on Thursday, the Supreme Court of India struck down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (Adultery Provision), thereby decriminalising adultery.

Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, while reading out the verdict today, described the law as "manifestly arbitrary" and "unconstitutional" stating that adultery cannot be a criminal offence and that a husband is not the master of a woman.

CJI Misra maintained that women must be treated equally as men.

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"Equality is the governing principle of a system. Husband is not the master of the wife," the apex court ruled.

However, the top court noted that adultery can form the basis for the dissolution of a marriage and can be ground for divorce.

"Legal subordination of one sex by another is wrong. Social progression of women and views of Justice Nariman in Triple Talaq case considered. Adultery can be grounds for dissolution of marriage," CJI Misra read out the verdict.

The five-judge bench also pronounced that mere adultery cannot be called a crime unless something is added. "It is a matter of absolute privacy," the Court ruled.

The apex court had been hearing a clutch of pleas seeking quashing of the adultery provision in the IPC on the ground that it only punishes married men for having extramarital sexual relations with a married woman.

India's adultery law states that: "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, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case, the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor."

Another part of the law which drew much criticism was that the law permitted a woman's husband to file a complaint against the man she has sexual intercourse with, but no such provision was available for the wife of the adulterous man.