Supreme Court refuses to review decriminalisation of adultery

A five-judge Review Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde upheld a September 2018 Constitution Bench which had struck adultery out of the penal statute book. The original judgment in 2018 was based on a writ petition filed by a Kerala resident, Joseph Shine.

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Key-Points

The judgment said that the 158-year-old law was unconstitutional and is violative of Article 21 (Right to life and personal liberty) and Article 14 (Right to equality).

The Bench had also held that Section 198 (2) of the CrPC, which gave the cuckolded husband the exclusive right to prosecute his wife’s lover, was manifestly arbitrary.

On the other hand, the verdict had said that adultery can however be a ground for civil remedy like the dissolution of marriage.

The court had reasoned that there was no data whatsoever to support claims that abolition of adultery as a crime would result in “chaos in sexual morality” or an increase of divorce.