SC agrees to examine whether courts can seek CDR or hotel records to decide adultery allegations

New Delhi, July 7 The Supreme Court has agreed to examine the issue if a high court or family court can pass directions to get evidence like mobile call records and hotel records to decide matrimonial dispute where one spouse alleges adulterous conduct by the other.

A bench of Justices Krishna Murari and Sanjay Kumar issued notice to the wife on a plea moved by the husband against the Delhi High Court’s order upholding a family court’s direction to obtain and preserve his call detail records and produce details relating to his hotel stay in Jaipur.

In his plea before the apex court, the husband contended that adultery is not a public wrong where the community, as a whole, is a victim and conducting such a roving inquiry in a matrimonial dispute would infringe his fundamental right to privacy.

The wife had moved a petition before the family court seeking divorce on the ground of adultery and cruelty. She alleged that her husband is having an adulterous relationship with his friend, whom he met at a hotel in Jaipur.

On her allegations, the family court issued orders to the hotel to submit the details of booking, IDs of occupants of a room on a particular date and also to the mobile service provider to submit call detail records of the husband in a sealed cover.

On the husband’s plea, the Delhi High Court denied interference with the order of the family court and said that the family court’s directions “only pertain to the production of records” and do not deal with the charge of adultery against the husband.

Advocate Preeti Singh, appearing for the husband, argued before the apex court that the family court failed to protect the right of privacy of not just the petitioner but even of another woman and her minor daughter who are in no manner connected to the case at hand.

“When our democracy is striving to expand the freedom and liberty of its citizens, the intervention of the state into private lives of individuals, especially in matrimonial matters which do not even affect any legitimate state aim….. discharging the parties levelling such baseless allegations from bringing cogent evidences, will be a clear violation of their fundamental rights,” the husband’s plea said.

The top court will continue to hear the matter on August 7.