The Central government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court to exempt the Armed Forces from the purview of its 2018 judgement of decriminalising adultery, reported Live Law. The top court agreed to examine the plea. A bench headed by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman requested the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde to list the matter before a five-judge bench.

In its plea, the Centre said that decriminalising adultery may cause “instability” within armed forces as defence personnel often stay separated from their families for a long period, reported Live Law. The court also issued a notice to the petitioner on whose plea adultery was decriminalised in 2018, reported NDTV.

On September 27, 2018, the Supreme Court had unanimously struck down the provision of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised adultery. Section 497 of the IPC made it a crime for a man to have sexual intercourse with the wife of another, without the other man’s consent. Any man who did so was deemed to be violating the right of the husband. A woman could not be the perpetrator or the victim of the crime of adultery as the section ascribed sexual agency only to men.

The Constitutional Bench of then Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra held that Section 497 violated the right to equality and destroyed the dignity of women. The bench observed that parameters of Fundamental Rights should include the rights of women and that individual dignity is important in a sanctified society. The court felt that the law was against women who had no opportunity to defend themselves in a situation where they are falsely linked to a man on mere suspicion, since they could not be made party to the case under Section 497 and had no locus standi.

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