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Adultery Law and Gender Discrimination

The document discusses how Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes adultery, is unconstitutional for three reasons: 1) It violates Article 14 by lacking a determining principle to criminalize consensual sexual activity and by treating husbands and wives differently; 2) It violates Article 15(1) by discriminating against women by not considering the wife of an adulterer as an aggrieved party; 3) It violates Article 21 and women's fundamental dignity by creating gender-based distinctions through stereotypes that indent individual dignity.

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Nikhil Kumar
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4 views1 page

Adultery Law and Gender Discrimination

The document discusses how Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes adultery, is unconstitutional for three reasons: 1) It violates Article 14 by lacking a determining principle to criminalize consensual sexual activity and by treating husbands and wives differently; 2) It violates Article 15(1) by discriminating against women by not considering the wife of an adulterer as an aggrieved party; 3) It violates Article 21 and women's fundamental dignity by creating gender-based distinctions through stereotypes that indent individual dignity.

Uploaded by

Nikhil Kumar
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Additionally, if there was consent or connivance of the husband of a woman who has committed

adultery, no offence can be established. The section lacks an adequately determining principle to
criminalize consensual sexual activity and is therefore violative of Article 14.

According to section 198(2) of CrPC, wife of an adulterer is not considered as an aggrieved person.
The principle of the provision suffers from an absence of logicality of approach.

Therefore, it undergoes the vice of Article 14 of the Constitution remarkably being arbitrary. Article
15(1) prohibits the State from discriminating on the grounds of sex. Still, the husband is considered
an aggrieved party by the law if his wife engages in sexual intercourse with another man, but it is not
same with the wife if her husband does the same. Therefore, the offence of adultery distinguishes a
married man from a married woman on the ground of sex. Thus, the provision is discriminatory and
violative of Article 15(1).

Violation of dignity of woman and Article 21 [Right to life]:


Section 497 diminishes the fundamental dignity which a woman is entitled to have by creating
distinctions based on gender stereotypes which creates an indentation in the individual dignity of
women. Therefore, the same offends, Article 21.

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