Nation View: Supreme Court scraps Section 497 IPC, says 'Adultery not a crime'

Adultery is no longer a crime in India, though “without a shadow of doubt” can be grounds for divorce, the Supreme Court said on Thursday, scrapping the 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 a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, as he calls the Victorian adultery law – Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code arbitrary.