In a historic ruling, the Delhi High Court acquitted an adulterous man, bringing in the comparison with the Mahabharata to highlight the risks of thinking of women as property.
While citing the Mahabharata, specifically when Yudhishthira lost Draupadi at gamble, which set off the decimating war, Justice Nina Bansal Krishna spoke of this as an instance of the deep-rooted misogyny prevalent in society, highlighting the lessons learned through such ancient classics.
The case arose from a complaint in 2010 by a husband who charged the man with having an affair with his wife. The husband alleged that his wife would come to the park in the pretext of exercise and charged that she had sex with the accused in a Lucknow hotel, as a married couple without his permission.
Delhi HC Cites Reference from Mahabharat
Justice Krishna’s decision invoked the Mahabharata’s portrayal of the aftermath of treating women as commodities. She noted that Draupadi’s shame being auctioned off by her husband while her brothers did nothing resulted in calamitous outcomes, eventually leading to a devastating war.
The acquitted man had appealed a 2018 lower court decision requiring him to stand trial. In his petition, he argued that the lower court based its decision on the accusations of the husband alone, ignoring documentary evidence for his defense.
Justice Krishna’s ruling is also a sign of a wider social change, pointing to the importance of the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment in Joseph Shine vs Union of India, in which Section 497 of the IPC was ruled unconstitutional. Section 497 used to criminalise only men for adultery, promoting the idea of husbands as masters of women, something that was rejected by the court.
