Sunday, November 06, 2005

Dirt on the IPC #1: Section 497: Adultry

Thought I might forget evrything the Indian Penal Code throws at me, so I thought I would post the flaws as and when they showed up.

Big revelation in the IPC: the cliched example of a boss bedding his sec, as long as the sec is unmarried, does not amount to adultry. Even if the sec is married, and the boss sleeps with her without the consent of his own wife, but with the consent of the sec's husband, it is still not adultry.

Whats more: A Woman, can never commit adultry. Yeah, that's right.

Section 497: whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who s and whom he knows has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to rape, is guilty of the offence of adultry, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. in such a case the wife shall not be punished as an abettor.

A wife cheating on a husband is not Adultry, but a husband cheating on a wife is. And it's cheating only when the other lady is married...

Weird eh? And it escapes me as to how the wife can escape punishment if she did not comply (which, by the way, if true, would certainly amount to rape).

This is the law of our land. More dirt to come...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Agreed, IPC 497 is total bull shit.
Absolutely outdated and some jealous husbands who got wound up in bad marriage try to use this to extort money. India should change its laws. Atleast the new generation deserves better.