Court orders trial of man for adultery

A Delhi court has ordered framing of adultery charge against a man and his trial for allegedly establishing physical relations with the wife of another man in a hotel in Lucknow in 2010. The law provides for five years’ imprisonment or fine, or both for the offence.

The woman’s husband had said in his complaint that his wife and the accused must have established physical relations as they had travelled to Lucknow and back to Delhi on the same flights and had even stayed in a hotel as husband and wife. The complainant alleged that his wife and the accused also took adjoining seats on the flights from and to Delhi.

He, further, said that he repeatedly asked his wife where she had spent the night in Lucknow on January 21, 2010, but she had no answer. The accused and the woman worked together in a bank in the Capital. A Metropolitan Magistrate court had dismissed the complaint by the woman’s husband saying that “the complainant does not have any proof to show or has brought any witness to show that even if the wife of the complainant and the accused had stayed together in the same room they had [been] involved in sexual activity”.

“In absence of that, it is mere presumption of the complainant that by residing in the same room they must have [been] involved in sexual activity. This presumption is nowhere available in law of evidence and it always remains a piece of suspicion which cannot be made a basis for framing of charge,” the Magistrate had said further.

In reply to a legal notice sent by the complainant, the accused did not deny the allegations. Even during cross-examination of the complainant, the accused did not challenge him on the allegation of establishing physical relations with his wife at the hotel.

The accused took the defence that there was professional relationship between them as they worked in the same bank.

“Prima facie, a case under Section 497 [adultery] IPC is made out against the respondent. Revision is allowed...,” Additional Sessions Judge Jitendra Kumar Mishra said, while allowing the revision petition by the woman’s husband against the Magistrate court order.