CASE COMMENT: JOSEPH SHINE v. UNION OF INDIA
Downloads
Abstract
Case No. W.P. (Criminal) No. 194 of 2017, (Decided on September 27, 2018)
The decision in Joseph Shine v. Union of India received wide public acclaim along with a torrent of pointed and popular attack as the offence of adultery was struck down as a criminal offence. A myopic and categorical approach towards the gender biased provision of Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code ushered the Court in an unpromising direction. A standoff between particularity and predictability was evident as was the hesitation of the Court to take the road less travelled.
While the foundational premise of Joseph Shine was to uphold equality, liberty, dignity and privacy as supreme Constitutional values, the overarching effect of their application, simmers down the significance of the judgment. Though it explicitly placed heavy reliance on the need of recognising women to be their own persons, the inadvertent outlook of the Court comes across as crass and contradictory.
In making a verdict on maintaining the sanctity of matrimonial homes, an overly sanitised perspective only created a murkier position. The precedent sounds the death knell for the failure of the promise to fulfil Constitutional commitments. The Comment goes on to discuss the scope and interpretational principles of this case.
Adultery is a legal quandary which contains elements of biblical cadence in it. The provision criminalises sexual intercourse with a married woman and exclusively punishes only the man for such an act. It enfolds within itself a mirage of sanctuary, solely for women, from criminal prosecution. To remove the ripples of illusive protection, the constitutionality of the same was challenged.
Into this gulf came Joseph Shine v. Union of India, wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India laid the judicial debate to rest by striking down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as the “IPC”) along with Section 198(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as the “CrPC”). It teed up like no other case the questions of Constitutional interpretation in a doctrinal abyss.
External References to this Article
Loading reference data...
License Terms
Ownership and Licensing:
Authors of research papers submitted to any journal published by The Law Brigade Publishers retain the copyright of their work while granting the journal specific rights. Authors maintain ownership of the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. Simultaneously, authors agree to license their research papers under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License.
License Permissions:
Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License, others are permitted to share and adapt the work, even for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate attribution is given to the authors, and acknowledgment is made of the initial publication by The Law Brigade Publishers. This license encourages the broad dissemination and reuse of research papers while ensuring that the original work is properly credited.
Additional Distribution Arrangements:
Authors are free to enter into separate, non-exclusive contractual arrangements for distributing the published version of the work (e.g., posting it to institutional repositories or publishing it in books), provided that the original publication by The Law Brigade Publishers is acknowledged.
Online Posting:
Authors are encouraged to share their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on personal websites) both prior to submission and after publication. This practice can facilitate productive exchanges and increase the visibility and citation of the work.
Responsibility and Liability:
Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submitted research papers do not infringe on the copyright, privacy, or other rights of third parties. The Law Brigade Publishers disclaims any liability for any copyright infringement or violation of third-party rights within the submitted research papers.
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright © 2026 by Surbhi Burman, Smriti Walia
The copyright and license terms mentioned on this page take precedence over any other license terms mentioned on the article full text PDF or any other material associated with the article.
