‘Women cannot be punished for adultery’

NEW DELHI: A woman, even if she is involved in an illicit relationship, cannot be punished for adultery and is treated as the victim under law.

And the National Commission for Women (NCW) has shot down proposals for amending Section 497 to ensure that adulterous women are prosecuted. The Commission had been asked by the Centre to review Section 497 which does not envisage prosecution of the wife by the husband for adultery.

The section provides that the wife shall not be punishable even as an abettor based on the reasoning that the wife, who is involved in an illicit relationship with another man, is a victim and not the author of the crime. 

According to NCW sources, the Commission does not feel that by merely prescribing punishment for women by amending Section 497, the marriage can be protected or saved.

The NCW has forwarded its recommendations to the government, in which it has stated that considering the relatively socially disempowered position of women, the Commission suggests no amendments to Section 497 of IPC.  The existing provision is based on the mindset that the wife is a personal possession of the husband, who is the sole aggrieved person in an incident of adultery.

The Commission has, however, recommended suitable amendments to Section 198(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which as of now disqualifies the wife of an unfaithful husband from prosecuting him for his promiscuous behaviour.