Central Government Asks Supreme Court to Make Adultery Punishable for Armed Forces

Today a Bench of Justices Navin Sinha, KM Joseph and RF Nariman issued a notice in the petition filed by the government of India on the ground that the 2018 judgment decriminalising adultery under Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code shouldn’t apply to the Armed Forces.

Armed Forces personnel can be removed from service on the basis of adultery

KK Venugopal, Attorney General argued that the Armed Forces personnel can be removed from service on the basis of inappropriate conduct of committing adultery with another officer's wife.

Justice Nariman then observed that the matter would be placed before a five-judge Bench as deemed fit by the Chief Justice of India.

In the military, the offence of “stealing the affections of a brother officer’s wife" – a euphemism for adultery – is a serious offence that is a notch below “cowardice”, which is punishable with even death.

In the military, the punishment for adultery is derived from Section 497 and is not a standalone offence. Similar provisions are also there in the other wings of the Armed Forces as well. Usually, these proceedings lead to the dismissal of an accused officer from service.

In September 2018 SC struck down Section 497 IPC which criminalised adultery

The Apex Court in September 2018 struck down Section 497 IPC which criminalised adultery, ruling that the nineteenth-century law that “treats a husband as the master”, was unconstitutional.

“The adultery law is arbitrary and it offends the dignity of a woman”, then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, who headed the five-judge Bench, had observed back then.