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NEW DELHI: Mere adultery can't be a crime unless it attracts the scope of Section 306 (abatement to suicide) of the IPC, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
"Adultery can be ground for civil issues including dissolution of marriage but it cannot be a criminal offence," the apex court said.
On the petition challenging the validity of Section 497 (Adultery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), CJI Dipak Misra said, "The magnificent beauty of the democracy is I, you and we. Equality is the governing principle of a system. Husband is not the master of the wife. Women must be treated with equality. Any discrimination shall invite the wrath of Constitution. Section 497 IPC which deals with Adultery is absolutely manifestly arbitrary."
Section 497 of the 158-year-old 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."
On January 5, the apex court had referred to a five-judge constitution bench the plea challenging the validity of the penal law on adultery. The court had taken a prima facie view that though the criminal law proceeded on "gender neutrality", the concept was absent in Section 497.
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