Relevance: GS Paper II, IV (Polity & Governance and Ethics)
Why has this issue cropped up?
The Supreme Court has struck down as unconstitutional Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code that had criminalised adultery for 158 years.
The basis of Supreme Court’s verdict
- Equality before the law does not only signify equal access to the law, but also equal exposure to the law. This is one of the principles followed by the Supreme Court.
- Section 198(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is also struck down. In both cases, the court has found that the woman was robbed of agency and reduced to a chattel.
- Law which allows only men to have agency and the right to be aggrieved is unacceptable at a time when sexual relations are understood to be between equals.
- One gender was granted ownership of the other, which was deemed to be too innocent to look after itself.
Constitutional morality
- This reform is part of a process of change in constitutional morality, which has acquired an inexorable momentum.
- The striking down of Section 377, which had decriminalised gay sex, may be the most celebrated legal reform, but the trail goes back to 2015, when the Supreme Court found a long-term live-in relationship to be indistinguishable from marriage, even for inheritance.
- In recent times, the triple talaq ruling and the right to privacy have maintained the trend.
- It would not be unreasonable now to look forward to the criminalisation of marital rape, which is the next milestone on a road being rapidly travelled.
