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

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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.