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Delhi’s Superior Court acquitted a man accused of adultery, citing the mahabharata to highlight the dangers of treating Wome as property
Judge Nina Bansal Krishna cited the incident where Yudhishthira played Draupadi, which led to the epic war. (Representative/Shuttersock)
In a significant decision, the Superior Court of Delhi has acquired a man accused of adultery, resorting to the references of the mahabharata to highlight the dangers of the treatment of women as property.
Judge Nina Bansal Krishna cited the incident where Yudhishthira opted for Draupadi, which led to the epic war, underlining the persistent misogeny in society.
The case dates back to a complaint of 2010 in which a husband claimed that his wife was involved in an adulterous relationship with the defendant. The husband said that his wife would go to the park under the pretext of exercising after dinner and claimed that he had sex with the man in a lunknow hotel, which was passed as husband and wife without his consent.
Judge Krishna’s trial said that the Mahabharata provides a clear lesson about the dangers of seeing women as property, a lesson really only internalized when the Supreme Court repealed the adultery law.
In the historical case of Joseph Shine vs Union of India in September 2018, the Supreme Court declared that Section 497 of the CPI is not stituished. This section previously allowed only men to be prosecuted for having sex with a married woman with the consent of the husband, thus treating husbands as owners and women as property.
Judge Krishna emphasized that the Mahabharata documented the disastrous consequences of treating women as the property of husbands. He pointed out that Draupadi was appropriate for her husband, while four brothers were still silent spectators, leaving her without voice to defend her dignity. This incident precipitated a great war and a broad and extended destruction.
The acquittal had filed a petition in the Superior Court that challenged an order of the 2018 city court that summoned it for the trial. In his request, the defendant argued that the lower court, trusted only in the accusations of the husband, without taking into account the documentary evidence.
- Location:
Delhi, India, India