whether women can be held liable for adultery under IPC

702 votes

No, a women cannot be prosecuted for adultery according to section 497 of The indian Penal Code, 1860.According to this section only the husband can be held liable for adultery and wife cannot be held liable as an adulteress.
Regards.

Advocate Suvajit Ghosh Dastidar LawRato

864 votes

Section 497 IPC read with Section 198 CrPC, thus signifies the unequal status of "husband" and "wife" in the institution
of marriage in India. It declares that:
(i) man is a seducer and the married woman is merely his hapless and passive victim,
(ii) he trespasses upon another man's marital property i.e. his wife by establishing a sexual liaison with the married woman with her consent but without the consent or connivance4 of her husband,
(iii) husband of the adulteress wife is an aggrieved party and he (in some cases a person who had care of the married woman when the adultery was committed), therefore, is authorised to make a formal complaint,
(iv) wife of the man, if he is married, who had consensual sexual intercourse with another woman, married or unmarried, is not deemed to be an aggrieved party and thereby is precluded from making a formal complaint against either her husband or the adulteress woman, and
(v) a married man, with impunity, may seduce and establish sexual liaison with an unmarried woman, a widow, or a divorcee even though such a sexual link is equally potential to wreck the marriage between him and his wife.

Advocate Robert D Rozario LawRato