November 22, 2024 21:40 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Centre to send over 10,000 additional soldiers to violence-hit Manipur amid fresh violence | Chhattisgarh: 10 Maoists killed during encounter with security forces in Sukma | Baba Siddique murder case: Arrested Akashdeep Gill used a labourer's hotspot to evade tracking, say police | Donald Trump picks 'smart and tough' Pam Bondi as new US Attorney General after Matt Gaetz withdraws | Canadian government denies media report that claims PM Modi knew of Khalistani leader Nijjar's killing
Adultery should be made crime again: MPs' panel tells govt in report on Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita
Adultery
Image of new Parliament building captured by Sujoy Dhar/IBNS

Adultery should be made crime again: MPs' panel tells govt in report on Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita

| @indiablooms | 14 Nov 2023, 08:21 pm

New Delhi/IBNS: Adultery should be made a crime again to "protect the institution of marriage" which is "sacred", a parliamentary panel Tuesday recommended to the government in its report on the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, a bill tabled by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in September.

The report has suggested that the revised adultery law must treat the same as a "gender-neutral" crime and has called for both parties - the man and the woman - to be held equally liable.

If the government accepts this recommendation, it would contradict a landmark 2018 ruling by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court that said: "adultery cannot and should not be a crime".

The Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita is part of a set of three that is supposed to replace the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Indian Evidence Act. It had been sent in August to the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which is headed by BJP MP Brij Lal, for further scrutiny.

Congress MP P Chidambaram, who was among those to not support the recommendation, said: "... the State has no business to enter into the lives of a couple".

He said as he raised three "fundamental objections" that included claims that all three bills are "largely a copy and paste of the existing laws".

In 2018, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said adultery "can be a ground for a civil offence... for divorce..." but could not be a criminal offence.

The court reasoned that the 163-year-old, colonial-era law followed the invalidated concept of "husband is master of the wife".

In scathing comments, the court called the law "archaic", "arbitrary" and "paternalistic", and said it infringed on a woman's autonomy and dignity.
 

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.