In probably the First Divorce in India granted on Wife Swapping ground, this story makes fora sad and angry reading.
The judge ,in his wisdom, let off the couple with merely granting the Divorce.
Wife Swapping Logo.
The Boy should have been charged under SITA(what an acronym for Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act.
The girl should also have been charged under the same section, as she had taken time and there is no mention of Rape(This calls for the re-definition of Rape-read my blog on this)
Is is that the girl had brought the charge because she did not like the ‘partner’ she had?
Cleverly, probably under the advice(?) of a Lawyer she had admitted consuming Liquor .
She had informed her in-laws?
What did she inform?
I know of a Star Hotel in Anna Salai -Chennai, where the wife swapping takes place during week ends.
Be wary or eager ( depends on how you view it) of special entrances charges upwards of Rs 3000/ head with discounts for Couple and drinks on the house on weekends.
The process of wife swapping is very simple and ingenious.
The couple ,whenever they want to leave,just exchange car keys -the usual destination is OMR Road,resorts/individual houses on rent.
What could be the reasons?
It is not as though this is happening now.
Even 15 or years back such instances were there.
Now the incidents are on the rise.
The advent of IT Industry, pay package, the pampered cocooned atmosphere, the atmosphere to mix , the illusion of Life as being ‘Great’, ‘Cool’”awesome’ and easy monetary success contribute to this.
IT industry produces the best paid , most restless,emotionally unstable sad human beings.
Please wake up.
Worse still that the people involved do not even feel it is immoral.
Being immoral is pardonable, Amoral is not.
Story:
“By Umesh R Yadav – BANGALORE
23rd October 2012 09:30 AM
It might be one among the many divorce cases in the city. But what made it unusual were the grounds on which the divorce was granted — wife-swapping.
Granting divorce to Bhavya (29) (name changed) recently, a family court judge observed: “Practices like wife-swapping spoil Indian society, and people should not forget their culture and tradition by being attracted towards foreign lifestyles.”
In her petition seeking divorce, Bhavya of Chikmagalur said she was married to Dhanush (name changed), a software engineer residing at Jayanagar, three years ago. Both of them were attracted towards lavish western lifestyles. They used to go to late night parties and discos, and Dhanush used to introduce her to his friends, she said.
Bhavya further said sometimes they used to drink together, and Dhanush encouraged his friends to get too close to her. Dhanush also used to get intimate with wives of his friends. Recently, Dhanush and his friends arranged a party at a resort near Nelamangala, where they had brought their wives. At that party, they all drank and Bhavya was completely under the influence of alcohol. They spent the night there.
When Bhavya turned sober the next morning, she found one of Dhanush’s friends sleeping on her bed.
When she informed her husband of that, Dhanush seemed to be knowing about the “arranged incident”, and asked her not to discuss it with any one, Bhavya said.
After that incident, Bhavya refused to go to parties with him. But soon, Dhanush started compelling her to accompany him to parties. When she protested and informed her in-laws about it, he started torturing her.
Unable to bear it any more, she went to her parents’ house and stayed there for one-and-a-half years, but Dhanush continued to torture her, she said in her complaint.”
Wife swapping is a hit for subscription television channel LifeStyle You, with Wife Swap Australiaranking as the number one entertainment programme on the Foxtel and Austar platform on Monday evening.
The premiere of Wife Swap Australia became the channel’s highest rating programme to date with 163,811 viewers.
The Twittersphere lit up too, as #wifeswapau became Australia’s top trending topic for the night.
Wife Swap Australia gives a whole new meaning to domestic bliss and lifts the lid on what it means to be Australian in the 21st century. The programme offers no cash rewards, but seeks to help couples reestablish their love and commitment to each other.
The wife’s argument was that her husband was suffering from Depression, Paranoia and had documents to support her stand.
The Court decided that the denial of a chance to the wife to explain amounts to cruelty and therefore the dissolution is void.
May be it is legally correct, thought Right, and it is endorsed by the Indian Lawyer Review.
Husband is depressed and suffers from Paranoia,wife is reported to be committing adultery.
What good can come of this relationship if they continue it?
The logical step for them , according to the judgement -Live together again ‘that too under the circumstances?
Or separate?
Whether the a chance is given or not to whom it is given it is clear they can not live together.
Then what is the point in voiding the Dissolution of the marriage?
The interesting point is the report is silent as to whether the wife wants to live with her husband.
Story:
According to an article in today’s Times of India, the Karnataka High Court has held that being denied a chance to prove an argument amounted to cruelty in a divorce case. The parties in the case had been granted a divorce by the family court. The Husband had moved for a divorce on the basis of adultery. The Wife opposed the motion and sought to prove by medical testimony that the Husband suffered from a “paranoid disorder.” The High Court cancelled the divorce judgment and ordered the case back to the family court with the direction “to afford an opportunity to both the parties to adduce further evidence, in accordance with the law.”
The interesting aspect of this case, for foreign readers, is that Indian courts can, and routinely do, deny a divorce to a party who wishes to have a divorce. With the advent of no-fault divorce in the West we often forget that in many countries one must still prove a cause for divorce and that getting a divorce is by no means a routine task. There are cases in the paper every week discussing parties who have been attempting to get/opposing a divorce for decades! Will India ever see no-fault divorce? That remains to be seen. In this matter, however, it is good news that one party will be afforded an opportunity to be heard in court. For that is the very foundation of a justice system.
Common sense says that Adultery is at the minimal level is breach of trust.
If breach of trust is a cognizable offense(Raja and Kanimozhi of 2 G fame/notoriety have been booked under this as an after thought this involves tough prison sentence),it beats me as to how breach of trust in a marriage is not a cognizable offense.
Indian law discriminates men against women in this aspect.
”
In India the offence of adultery is punishable under Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860. As it stands, this Section makes only men having sexual intercourse with the wives of other men without the consent of their husbands punishable and women cannot be punished even as abettors. The Report of the Malimath Committee on Criminal Justice Reforms and the 42nd Report of the Law Commission of India recommended redefining Section 497 to make women also punishable for adultery. The Central Government accordingly has sought the views of all the 30 states in the country regarding the implementation of the said recommendations. This paper attempts to establish the redundancy of Section 497 in the light of Personal and Matrimonial laws and changing social conditions subsequently making a case against amending and for completely deleting Section 497 from the IPC.
An Analysis of Section 497
Section 497 penalizes sexual intercourse of a man with a married woman without the consent of her husband when such sexual intercourse does not amount to rape. That is, it draws a distinction between consent given by a married woman without her husband’s consent and a consent given by an unmarried woman. It does not penalize the sexual intercourse of a married man with an unmarried woman or a widow or even a married woman when her husband consents to it. In case the offence of adultery is committed, the husband cannot prosecute his unfaithful wife but can only prosecute her adulterer. However, since the offence of adultery can be committed by a man with a married woman only, the wife of the man having sexual intercourse with other unmarried women cannot prosecute either her husband or his adulteress. What is interesting here is that the section itself expressly states that the unfaithful wife cannot be punished even as an abettor to the crime. The offence of adultery therefore is an offence committed against the husband of the wife and not against the wife.
The Constitutionality of Section 497 was challenged before the Supreme Court under Article 14 on the grounds that it makes an arbitrary discrimination based on sex in the cases of Yusuf Aziz , Sowmithri Vishnu and V. Revathi .
In the case of Yusuf Aziz the Court ruled that the immunity granted to women from being prosecuted under section 497 was not discriminatory but valid under Article 15 (3) of the Constitution.
In the cases of Sowmithri and V.Revathi it was held that it is the policy of the law to not to punish women for adultery and policies could not be questioned. Secondly, that it was not contemplated for a husband and a wife to strike each other with weapon of criminal law. And that adultery therefore was an offence against the matrimonial home and not either against the wife or the husband.
It must be mentioned here that all of the above decisions of the Supreme Court had restricted their scope to the determination of Constitutional validity of Section 497 as it stands. They should not be taken as an authority over the question whether Section 497 is required at all.
Adultery cannot be committed without a woman’s consent. Yet, the section burdens man alone for the offence. Though the reasons for this may be justifiable, the woman here is always treated as a victim of the offence. Hence, this section does not contemplate a situation where the same married woman has sexual intercourse with more than one person other than her husband without her husband’s consent. It is highly implausible that even in such a situation the woman would always be the victim and not the person who provokes the offender for the crime. No doubt that the law, as it stands, is inadequate.
Why Women Are Not Punished for Adultery
The offence of Adultery did not punish women but still existed in the code because at the time the enforced law was enacted polygamy was deep rooted in the society and women shared the attention of their husbands with several other wives and extramarital relations. Women were treated as victims of the offence of adultery as they were often starved of love and affection from their husbands and could easily give in to any person who offered it or even offered to offer it. The provision was therefore made to restrict men from having sexual relations with the wives of other men and at the same time to restrict their extra marital relations to unmarried women alone.
Why the Supreme Court Has Erred Considering the limited question of Constitutional validity before it the object of Section 497, as stated above, was never brought before the Supreme Court. The decisions of the Court therefore have erred to the limited extent of holding adultery as an offence against the matrimonial home.
If adultery had been a matrimonial offence neither the husband would have had the freedom to indulge in extra-marital sexual relations with unmarried women nor the consent of the husband of the wife when she had sexual intercourse with other men would make any difference in its constitution. Adultery therefore is not an offence against the matrimonial home but against the husband himself. The way a person is not expected to enter on the property of the other without his consent, another man is not expected to have sexual intercourse with someone’s wife without his consent. It uses the same analogy that is used for the offence of trespass. There is no doubt then that this section treats a woman like a man’s chattel.
Changing Social Conditions
Polygamy in all religions except Muslims, who are legally allowed to have four wives, has ceased to exist and become illegal. Men now have only one wife who has no rivals for her husband’s love and affection. Today, not only a person having two wives can be prosecuted for bigamy but his second marriage is void ab-initio. Unlike the past when it was required to prove that the husband “lived in adultery” to obtain a divorce, even a single instance of sexual intercourse with anyone other than the spouse entitles the other spouse for divorce.”
Hope organisations like http://www.saveindianfamily.org/ , http://aimwa.in/,which fights for the cause of harassed husbands who suffer at the hands of wife and in laws take this issue and fight the issue out.
Social awareness is to be created for injustices meted out to men.
Another interesting part of the judgement confirmed the alimony.
It is sheer inhuman-the wife was divorced for adultery and she is being rewarded!
Any one who wants to make a quick buck may marry a person who earns Rs.One lakh/m ,commit adultery,get a divorce get a regular income for life.
If adventurous,repeat the process by getting married again.
Do people leave common sense at home?
NEW DELHI, 20 NOV: A husband cannot deny maintenance to his divorced wife on the ground that she was involved in an adulterous relationship, a Delhi court has said.
The verdict was passed by additional sessions judge Mr TR Naval, who said: “The findings that the divorcee wife has been living in adultery will not provide any benefit to him (husband)”.
The court rejected the plea of a Delhi-based policeman, who had challenged a magistrate’s order directing him to pay Rs 4,000 as monthly alimony to his wife on the ground that she was having an adulterous relationship.
The divorcee wife had moved the sessions court seeking enhancement of the alimony to Rs 15,000 per month saying her ex-husband was earning over Rs 50,000 per month and had no other liability.
The ASJ, however, disposed of the petitions saying the order passed by the magistrate was “fair” and “proper”.
“I am of the view that there is no infirmity, illegality or inaccuracy in the impugned order and there is no merit in the revisions (petition),” the court said.
The ASJ also observed that the magistrate, while deciding the alimony, had also kept in mind that the man had re-married and had the responsibility of his second wife and children.
The woman had filed a petition before a magistrate seeking alimony alleging that she had got married in February 2004 and although her parents had given dowry at that time, her husband and in-laws used to taunt her for not bringing a car.
She had alleged that as her husband was serving in police, he used to threaten her and her family members. She had also claimed that she was brutally beaten up by him and her mother-in-law.
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