A Delhi court rejected an Army Major’s plea to get access to the booking and CCTV record of a hotel to prove his wife, who is also an Army Major’s affair with a junior colleague. The court dismissed the request citing the guests’ right to privacy asserting that the right protects their data from other parties.
The Major had filed a complaint in the internal army proceedings over the alleged extramarital affair of his wife. Civil Judge Vaibhav Pratap Singh who was hearing the case said that, "The right to privacy and to be left alone in a hotel would extend to the common areas as against a third party who was not present there and has no other legally justifiable entitlement to seek the data of the guest. Same would hold good for the booking details.”
The rights of the wife and the junior colleague to be heard in the matter were also noted. "The release of such private information without affording them an opportunity to defend their privacy rights would be a violation of their right to natural justice and even the fundamental right to privacy and could lead to reputational harm," the court added.
The court asserted that it is not the investigative body in the matter and that the petitioner must avail remedies under the Army Act, 1950 and the extant rules.
The judge cited Graham Greene's novel "The End of the Affair” in his order stating that “the burden of fidelity” rests with the one who made the promise and not the outsider as they were never bound by it.
The judge also pointed out the notion of “stealing the woman” as a dated idea. Judge Singh highlighted the landmark verdict on adultery by the Supreme Court citing the 2018 Joseph Shinde vs Union of India case. The apex court had rejected the idea that a man could steal the affection of another man’s wife as if the woman has no right to choose whom to love.
He further claimed that even the Parliament had done away with the adultery law while enacting the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
