Top Court to reexamine the constitutionality of Section 497 of IPC

The Supreme Court of India has admitted a petition, which has challenged the constitutionality of the Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, observing that the adultery law is not compatible with the Right to Equality, which prohibits the system from exercising any kinds of discrimination on the basis of gender.

As per the section 497 of the IPC, 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 the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery and shall be punished.

Mainly, the dispute arises over two hidden aspects of the law: how it treats women and men; how it considers women and men.

Unfortunately, the law treats the men as the adulterer and the women as the victim. Moreover, it indirectly commodifies the women as a mere object. Importantly, it indirectly supports the patristic system, by treating the women as the men’s subordinate.

Anyway, the court has observed that these archaic laws should undergo a change. It has added that women are equal to men.

Vignesh. S. G

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