Why Keep Adultery A Criminal Offence In The Armed Forces?
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2021-01-15 10:59:12
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For a government that believes in the uniform civil code and has a fetish for one nation, one everything, it is surprising that the Centre has petitioned the Supreme Court to let adultery remain a criminal offence for the Armed Forces.
Relying on the moralisitic view imposed by the British that adultery in the forces results in an army man "stealing the affection of a brother's wife", the government has said that since armed forces operate in peculiar circumstances where jawans and officers are posted in forward inhospitable terrain while their wives are taken care of by their units at family accommodation, which are frequently visited by officers and JCOs to look after their well-being, adultery must remain a criminal offence in the armed forces and personnel found guilty must be cashiered from service.
This argument assumes that wives of personnel posted on forward duty might enter into an adulterous relationship with only army personnel who visit them. It also assumes that officers and JCOs who will visit these lonely wives would take advantage of them. It further assumes that the wives would be ready and willing for such a liaison. It conveniently overlooks the fact that a lonely woman can also seek love outside the armed forces and can get into a relationship with a civilian. It seeks to penalize love.
This is wrong. The very reasons for which adultery was decriminalized apply for armed forces personnel also. Any adult person, whether married or not, has the right to fall in love with any other adult person and get into a relationship with him or her. It is their individual choice. There should not be any criminality involved in a sexual call taken by two consenting adults. Further, adultery laws in India (before they were decriminalized) carried a deep gender bias. The wife's relationship was considered adulterous and the man who entered into a relationship with her could be criminally prosecuted. But it said nothing about a married man having an adulterous relationship with another woman. What if army personnel posted on forward locations get into such adulterous relationship? Will they also be cashiered?
Although the Parliament can make separate laws for the armed forces as per Article 33 of the Indian constitution, and the Supreme Court agreed with the government on that, the bench sent the petition to the CJI for placing it before a five-judge bench as a bench of same strength had decriminalized adultery. But the government will be wrong to make it adultery a criminal offence even in the armed forces.
