Adultery Law Verdict: Supreme Court to deliver verdict on petition challenging validity of Adultery. LIVE UPDATES here

Update at 11.33 am: "s377 now s497 decriminalised BUT Triple Talaaq has Penal Provision (criminalise) Kya Insaaf hai MITRO aapka ,what will BJP do": Asaddudin OWaisi

Update at 11.26 am: Society imposes impossible virtues on a woman. Raises her to a pedestal. Confines her to spaces. Says she should be pure, but has no qualms to rape her, assault her, commit female foeticide, discriminate against her within a home: Justice Chandrachud

Update at 11.15 am: 5-Judge bench unanimously strikes down section 497

Update at 11.14 am: No justification for section 497 to remain on statute book: Justice Indu Malhotra

Update at 11.13 am: Section 497 institutionalises discrimination: Justice Indu Malhotra

Update at 11.12 am: Society has two sets of standards for judging the morality of men and women. Section 497 also deprives a woman of a her privacy. The law is gender biased, gives unequal voice to partners: Justice Chandrachud

Update at 11.11 am: We should have done away with this law long long back: Rekha Sharma, NCW chief 

Update at 11.09 am: A woman loses her voice and autonomy after marriage: Justice Chandrachud

Update at 11:09 am: Section 497 doesn’t meet the touchstone of Article 21 of the constitution. A woman loses her voice and autonomy after marriage: Justice Chandrachud

Update at 11:09 am: Section 497 is based on the concept that a woman loses her individuality once she is married. It destroys and deprives women of dignity: Justice Chandrachud

Update at 10:53 am: The full verdict by Dipak Misra Chief Justice of India:

• Parameters of fundamental rights should include rights of women
• Individual dignity important in a sanctified society
• The system can't treat women unequally
• Women can't be asked to think what a society desires
• Legal subordination of one sex by another is wrong
• Social progression of women and views of Justice Nariman in Triple Talaq case considered

Update at 10:52 am: Adultery as a criminal offence under Section 497 is manifestly arbitrary. Section 497 affects the subordination of women. Adultery can be a ground for divorce but not a criminal offence. Adultery dents the individuality of women: Dipak Misra, Chief Justice of India

Update at 10:49 am: Women’s individual dignity is important. Husband is not the master of a woman: Dipak Misra, Chief Justice of India

Update at 10:49 am: The Legal sovereignty of one sex over another is wrong. Section 497 is unconstitutional. Equality is the need of the hour: Dipak Misra, Chief Justice of India

Update at 10:43 am: Judges assemble to read Adultery verdict

The Supreme Court on Thursday will deliver its judgment on the petition challenging the constitutional validity of Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalises adultery. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had referred the matter to a Constitution bench on the plea claiming that it is discriminatory towards men.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra along with justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra had in August, reserved its order on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Section 497 (Adultery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

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During the previous hearing, the Centre had defended the validity of section 497 of the IPC before the Supreme Court, stating that adultery was a crime because it damaged marriage and the family and therefore it was a public wrong.

The court, however, had questioned the government's stand defending the adultery law, which punishes married men while absolving married women who are involved in a relationship outside their marriage.

The CJI had also asked the Centre how the penal provision preserved the sanctity of marriage when an extramarital affair would be non-punishable if the woman's husband stood by her.