New Delhi, Apr 18 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has discharged a man in an adultery case filed by the husband of a woman he was allegedly having an affair with and said a woman being considered as the husband’s property was well documented in the case of Draupadi in Mahabharat.

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna discussed in detail the judgement of the Supreme Court striking down the offence of adultery under Section 497 IPC for being unconstitutional and said the “archaic law” provided that the offence was only committed in the absence of consent or connivance of a married woman’s husband.

The wife, the judge added, was neither the offender nor the abettor because of the “chauvinistic logic” that she was in fact the victim who was seduced.

“The woman being considered as the property of the husband and its devastating consequences are well documented in Mahabharat wherein Draupadi was put on stake in a game of gamble by none other than her own husband Yudhishtra where other four brothers were the silent spectators and Draupadi had no voice to protest for her dignity,” the court’s April 17 verdict said.

The court went on, “As it happened, she was lost in the game of gamble and what followed was the great war of Mahabharat leading to mass loss of lives and wiping out of many of the family members. Despite having such example to demonstrate the consequence of absurdity of treating of a woman as a chattel, the misogynistic mindset of our society understood this only when the apex court declared Section 497 IPC as unconstitutional.” The husband in the present case alleged that his wife was in an adulterous relationship with the petitioner and they travelled to another city where they stayed together in a hotel and had sex without the husband’s consent.

While the magisterial court discharged the petitioner, the sessions court set it aside and summoned him.

Considering the top court’s decision, the high court held that the complaint case filed by the woman’s husband was liable to be quashed.

Even on facts, the high court said, the essential ingredients of Section 497 IPC were not made out as a presumption of sexual relations could not be prima facie considered for summoning an accused.

It observed that as per the Supreme Court, when a party in a matrimonial relationship lost “moral commitment”, it was “absolutely a matter of privacy” and “thinking of adultery from the point of criminality would be a retrograde step”.

The court noted under Section 497, since no offence was committed if there was consent of the husband, it was not the sanctity of marriage which was sought to be protected and preserved, but the proprietary right of a husband.

“The complexity and the anomalous situation in this section was noted by Rohinton F Nariman J.. It is only on this paternalistic notion of a woman being likened to a chattel for if one is to use the chattel or is licensed to use to chattel by the licensor namely the husband, no offence is committed..,” it added.

Discharging the man in the case, the bench said, “What is clear, therefore, is that this archaic law has long outlived its purpose and does not square with today’s constitutional morality in that the very object with which it was made, has since become manifestly arbitrary having lost its rationale long ago and become in today’s day and age, utterly irrational.” PTI ADS ADS AMK AMK