(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer) Srinagar- A Delhi court has delivered a sharp rebuke to what it termed patriarchal ideas of marriage and fidelity, rejecting an Indian Army Major's plea seeking CCTV footage and booking records from a hotel where he alleged his estranged wife - also a Major - was with another officer in an affair.
In a ruling that blends law, literature, and a strong defence of individual privacy, Civil Judge Vaibhav Pratap Singh said courts are“not investigative agencies for private vendettas,” and underlined that even in shared hotel spaces, the right to privacy must prevail, reported Livelaw .
“The burden of fidelity rests with the one who made the vow and broke it,” the judge wrote, quoting Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, adding,“The outsider was never bound by it.” He invoked the novel to highlight that betrayal, if any, lies within the marriage - not outside it.
Calling the notion of a man 'stealing' another man's wife“dated” and“dehumanising,” the judge said it robs women of agency and reduces them to property.“The idea,” he said,“takes agency away from women and dehumanises them.” He cited the Supreme Court's landmark Joseph Shine v. Union of India verdict that decriminalised adultery, firmly rejecting the colonial-era view that treated women as male possessions.
In a stinging observation, the judge noted that even Parliament had shown the door to such thinking by leaving out adultery as a crime under the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.“Modern-day Bharat has no place for gender condescension and patriarchal notions,” he stated.
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The court further pointed out that the wife and her alleged partner were not even parties to the case, and no opportunity had been given for them to be heard - a basic requirement before seeking sensitive personal data. Hotels, the judge reminded, have a duty to protect the confidentiality of their guests, and booking records or surveillance footage cannot be handed over at will, especially to third parties without legal entitlement.
The husband, embroiled in a divorce case, claimed the footage was essential to prove an affair - but the court made it clear that emotional claims do not override constitutional rights.
“Courts are not here to settle suspicions or act as private detectives,” Judge Singh concluded,“especially when no justifiable legal right to the data exists.”
The verdict is being seen as a reaffirmation of individual privacy, gender parity, and the modern Indian judiciary's refusal to play into moralistic or patriarchal narratives.
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