NEW DELHI: Emphasising on the fact that adultery causes pain and can break families, the Supreme Court on Thursday said that armed forces should have a mechanism for disciplinary proceedings against the officers for adultery. While considering Centre’s petition filed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) seeking to exempt armed forces personnel from the ambit of a Constitution Bench judgment of 2018 that decriminalised adultery, a bench five judges headed by Justice KM Joseph also remarked that adultery has the tendency of shaking discipline in armed forces.
A 5-judge bench also comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar said, “Adultery causes pain, it can break families. We have seen in High Courts while dealing with matrimonial cases, how adultery can break families...don’t treat it in a light handed manner. Armed forces must have some kind of assurance that they will take action. How can they cite Joseph Shine’s judgment and say it cannot be? ”
“In uniformed services, there has to be discipline,” the bench further added. Another oral observation which was made by the bench was that Joseph Shine judgment only decriminalised adultery but that did not bar disciplinary action.
The court’s observations came against the backdrop of the submissions put forth by ASG Madhavi Divan for the MoD in which she apprised the bench of the fact that disciplinary actions were taken against the armed forces for adultery but the same were quashed by the Armed Forces Tribunal in light of Joseph Shine judgment.
She added that action against these officers was imperative to ensure that officers who were serving in far flung areas away from their families did not feel insecure. Divan also contended that action was taken against the officers irrespective of their gender and even a female officer would be hauled up for misconduct if she was found to be involved in adulterous activities.
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