Adultery is no longer a crime in India though "without a shadow of doubt" can be grounds for divorce, the Supreme Court said today, junking a 158-year law that punished a man for an affair but not the woman, treating her as her husband's property. "The husband is not the master of the wife," said five most senior Supreme Court judges in a constitution bench, unanimously sticking up for gender justice and calling out the Victorian adultery law -- Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code -- as arbitrary.
The law punished a man who has an affair with a woman "without the consent or connivance of" her husband, with five years in jail or fine or both. There was no punishment for the woman, who was seen as the victim.
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