Go to proper forum to determine adultery: HC

November 26, 2014 09:35 am | Updated November 27, 2014 08:28 am IST - MADURAI:

"This is not the stage or place where the point (adultery) addressed by the petitioner can be answered.” the High Court Bench said.

"This is not the stage or place where the point (adultery) addressed by the petitioner can be answered.” the High Court Bench said.

The Madras High Court Bench here has expressed shock at the allegation made by a person that his wife, a judicial magistrate, had given birth to a baby girl through an illicit relationship with a Chief Judicial Magistrate.

“Being judicial officers, the accused ought to have been a role model for discipline and honesty and should have maintained the decorum of the court. Instead, apart from unlawful activities, it is stated that they have continued the illegal intimacy,” Justice S. Vaidyanathan said.

“If the female child born to the first accused is not out of the relationship with the petitioner, then it is shocking and it has to be taken note of seriously. But this is not the stage or place where the point addressed by the petitioner can be answered.”

The judge dismissed the petition for a directive to Tiruchi city police to register a case under Sections 497 (adultery) and 417 (cheating) of the IPC because they were not cognisable offences.

He pointed out that the police were bound to register FIRs within seven days of complaints for cognisable offences.

“This court feels that if the case of the petitioner is true, appropriate steps have to be initiated by the petitioner in accordance with law… Therefore, the petitioner will have to move the appropriate forum either for punishing the accused for adultery or for conducting a DNA test,” the judge said.

According to the petitioner, his wife was a lawyer at Tuticorin since 1992. She was appointed as a judicial magistrate in 2001 and gave birth to a baby boy on November 29, 2005. However, differences arose between them as he suspected her conduct. Claiming to have been living away from his wife since 2008 and relying on a letter written by her to prove the claim, the petitioner alleged that a baby girl born to her on November 2, 2009, was through her illegal relationship with the CJM.

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