SC notice on Centre’s plea seeking verdict decriminalizing adultery be not made applicable on forces

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday issued a notice on a plea of the Centre which urged that the 2018 judgement of a five-judge constitution bench decriminalizing adultery under the Indian Penal Code be not made applicable to the armed forces.

A bench comprising Justices R F Nariman, Navin Sinha and K M Joseph, after issuing the notice to the PIL petitioner and others on the Centre’s plea, referred the matter to Chief Justice S A Bobde for setting up of a five-judge Constitution Bench which can clarify the position.

In a path-breaking verdict, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by the then CJI Dipak Misra unanimously struck down Section 497 (adultery) of the Indian Penal Code and declared that adultery is not a crime and the penal provision was unconstitutional as it dented the individuality of women and treated them as “chattel of husbands”.

The apex court, in a September 2018 judgment, however had said that adultery would continue to be a ground for seeking divorce in matrimonial disputes.

The Centre, in its interim plea filed in a disposed of PIL of Joseph Shine, has sought clarification and a direction that the judgement be not made applicable on special statutes and rules governing the armed forces which take actions on its personnel for indulging in adulterous relationships to ensure discipline in forces.

It has been said when jawans and officers are posted in forward inhospitable areas, their families are taken care of at base camp by other officers and the laws and rules, providing actions for indulging in adulterous or promiscuous activity, help in maintaining discipline.

An armed forces personnel can be cashiered from service on grounds of unbecoming conduct for committing adultery with a colleague’s wife, it said.

Section 497 of the 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.”

Adultery was punishable by a maximum of five years in jail or fine or both.

Striking down the law, the apex court had said that the section 497 of the IPC was manifestly arbitrary, archaic law which is violative of the rights to equality and equal opportunity to women.