Swati Maliwal, Chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, on Thursday disagreed with the Supreme Court decision to declare that adultery was not a crime and striking down the law criminalising adultery, saying that it was 'anti-women'.
Maliwal took to Twitter to argue that instead of scrapping the law, the Supreme Court should have made it gender neutral. She argued that this verdict would affect the sanctity of marriage.
Maliwal said on Twitter:
A five-judge bench unanimously decided to strike down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 497 a 158-year-old law that said, "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery."
Adultery was punishable by a maximum five years in jail or fine or both.
The court said that a provision treating women with inequality was not constitutional and it was time to say that "husband is not the master of woman".