Page:Joseph Shine vs Union of India (Adultery Judgement).pdf/27

 commits adultery if he has sex with a woman with whom he has not entered into wedlock. As per Black’s Law Dictionary, ‘adultery’ is the voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with a person other than the offender’s husband or wife. However, the provision has made it a restricted one as a consequence of which a man, in certain situations, becomes criminally liable for having committed adultery while, in other situations, he cannot be branded as a person who has committed adultery so as to invite the culpability of Section 497 IPC. Section 198 CrPC deals with a “person aggrieved”. Sub-section (2) of Section 198 treats the husband of the woman as deemed to be aggrieved by an offence committed under Section 497 IPC and in the absence of husband, some person who had care of the woman on his behalf at the time when such offence was committed with the leave of the court. It does not consider the wife of the adulterer as an aggrieved person. The offence and the deeming definition of an aggrieved person, as we find, is absolutely and manifestly arbitrary as it does not even appear to be rational and it can be stated with emphasis that it confers a licence on the husband to deal with the wife as he likes which is extremely excessive and disproportionate. We are constrained to