Adultery Verdict Did Not Address Armed Forces Discipline Laws: Supreme Court Clarifies Joseph Shine

In Joseph Shine, reported as (2019) 3 SCC 39, the Court held Section 497 IPC unconstitutional for offending Articles 14, 15 and 21 (paras 3-4). The Union of India, the sole respondent there, applied for a clarification that armed forces personnel, a distinct class under Article 33, could still be dealt with for promiscuous or adulterous acts under Sections 45 and 63 of the Army Act and the corresponding Navy and Air Force Act provisions (paras 2-5). It stated that such actions were being challenged on the strength of the judgment, cases were piling up and discipline was suffering (para 13).

The original petitioner accepted that the questions raised were not those decided in Joseph Shine, which concerned only Section 497 IPC (para 21). He also accepted that the striking down of Section 497 may not stand in the way of proceedings under Section 45 of the Army Act, though each decision depends on its facts (para 22). The Court noted that Joseph Shine dealt only with the validity of Section 497 IPC and Section 198(2) CrPC, struck down through separate but concurrent opinions for offending Articles 14, 15 and 21 (para 23). It had no occasion to consider the effect of the service Acts (para 23). Nor did it approve of adultery: it may be a moral wrong, remains a ground for dissolution of marriage and has been described as a civil wrong (para 23). Since the scheme of the Acts in the context of Article 33 was never before the Court, it clarified that the judgment was not concerned with the effect and operation of those provisions (para 24). The Court was neither called upon nor ventured to pronounce on Sections 45 and 63 of the 1950 Act or the corresponding provisions in the other Acts (para 24).