28

May

Women march ahead despite and in spite of RSS-BJP ecosystem trying to push them back

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Last week, two news items caught my attention compelling me to assess their likely impact on society at large. One way or the other, both related to country’s Armed Forces-which in my view are bastions rather custodians of conservative moral values.

 

“Major’s plea for CCTV clip to prove wife’s affair rejected”, read a headline while other media platforms-print as well as audio-visual- carried similar headlines on the development.

 

Second news item, whose headline read ‘In a first, 17 women cadets to graduate from NDA’ relates with the first batch of 17 women going to pass out from once a male bastion of National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla on 29-30 May after three years of rigorous training along with their male colleagues. The 148th course is a historical landmark in the history of the Indian Armed Forces.

 

Let us first try to see details of the news items.  First relates to Delhi Patiala House Court’s rejection of a plea of an Army major seeking access to CCTV footage and booking records from a hotel in Aerocity to support allegations of an extramarital affair between his wife and a junior colleague, citing the guests’ right to privacy.

 

The court dismissed the officer’s petition for a mandatory injunction directing the hotel to produce CCTV footage of common areas and booking details for two days in January while upholding the hotel’s argument that granting such access would violate the privacy of guests and contravene internal policies.

 

The suit in question was filed by the officer, embroiled in a matrimonial dispute, who alleged that his wife and a colleague were engaged in an affair and sought the footage as evidence for both a pending divorce case and to lodge a complaint in internal Army proceedings. His plea named the hotel as a defendant but did not include either his wife or the colleague.

 

Column at a Glance
The article discusses two significant news items related to the Indian Armed Forces, highlighting contrasting societal issues. The first involves a Delhi court rejecting an Army major's plea for CCTV footage to support his allegations of his wife's extramarital affair, emphasizing the right to privacy for hotel guests. The court criticized the major's selective blame, asserting that the responsibility for marital fidelity lies with the person who made the vow, not the alleged paramour.
Wednesday Wisdom
By Satish Misra
The second item celebrates the graduation of 17 women cadets from the National Defence Academy (NDA), marking a historic milestone in gender inclusion within the military. This event follows a Supreme Court ruling that allowed women to enter the NDA, reflecting progress in women's rights. The article concludes by noting the judiciary's crucial role in supporting women's rights amid challenges posed by prevailing political forces.

 

 

The hotel’s lawyers contended that furnishing guest records or surveillance footage would breach privacy assurances made to guests under the hotel’s code of conduct.

 

Agreeing with the hotel, the court said, “There is an expectation of privacy when one visits a hotel and most hotels thrive on assurances of said privacy and discretion... 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 legally justifiable entitlement to seek the data.”

 

The petitioner’s counsel had maintained that the information was crucial for internal disciplinary action within the Army and for divorce proceedings. However, the court ruled that using private litigation to compel disclosure of third-party data would be “speculative and unsupported,” and equated it to conducting a “roving inquiry” in the hope of gathering evidence.

 

Noting that the wife and the man she allegedly had the extramarital affair with were not party to the suit, the court said releasing private information without giving them a chance to defend their rights would amount to a breach of natural justice and their fundamental right to privacy. “It could lead to reputational harm,” the judge observed.

 

The court also reprimanded the petitioner for misusing the legal process to collect evidence for internal disciplinary proceedings. “Courts are not meant to serve as investigative bodies for private disputes or as instruments for the collection of evidence in internal proceedings, especially when no legal entitlement to that evidence exists,” the order stated.

 

The court said, “The idea of a man stealing away the wife of another man, without ascribing any role or responsibility to the woman, is to be rejected. It takes agency away from women and dehumanises them”.

 

The court noted that the petitioner is only pursuing a case against his colleague, as if his wife is not to be blamed and only the colleague is, and that if not for him, the otherwise successful marriage would have endured.

 

The order read, “The plaintiffs selective blame and pursuit of the paramour fails to acknowledge that adultery may not be the cause of a marriage’s failure -- it may merely be a symptom”.

 

Quoting from the novel, The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene, the court said that the burden of fidelity rests with the one who made the promise. “It is not the lover who has betrayed the marriage, but the one who made the vow and broke it. The outsider was never bound by it”.

 

The court also mentioned how the Indian Parliament, while doing away with the colonial law, enacted the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, and did not retain the offence of adultery, “showing that modern day Bharat has no place doe gender condescension and patriarchal notions”.

 

The second news item is about the convocation and the Passing Out Parade of the landmark 148th course of the NDA, which is scheduled to take place on May 29 and 30. Seventeen women cadets are passing out from the academy along with their 300 plus male counterparts. An interim order passed by the Supreme Court of India in August 2021 had paved the way for the admission of the women cadets into the NDA. The apex court was hearing a plea seeking directions to allow eligible women to appear for the entrance exams of the NDA and Naval Academy examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

 

Is it not a paradox that on one side, women are crossing social, economic and political hurdles to march ahead on the other Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoking the oath of Sindoor to evoke emotions?      

 

In both cases, role of the county’s judiciary is crucial which has largely been supportive of the women rights though the judicial system in present times in the era of domination of the Hinduatva forces led by the RSS-BJP is working under considerable constraints including a systematic effort to undermine the independence of Judiciary to bring it under the Executive control.

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