The Madras High Court on Thursday sought to know from the Centre as to whether movies and soap operas were the major reason for “scandalous” sexual relationships and whether they invariably provide clues to those involved in “clandestine” relationships to commit offences such as murders and kidnappings.
Justices N. Kirubakaran and Abdul Quddhose raised these and 18 other questions while allowing a petition to quash a preventive detention order issued against a person accused of murder in connection with an illicit relationship. The judges quashed the order but kept the case pending for the Centre and State to answer their questions by June.
Referring to a newspaper article on increasing crimes committed to cover up extra-marital relationships, the judges said: “Most of the killings are either by husbands or wives to eliminate his or her cheating partner, the paramour and shockingly even children. Moreover, murders are being committed to continue the illicit relationship.”
After recording the statistics provided in the news report, the Division Bench said: “Marriage in India is based on love, faith, trust and legitimate expectation. The marital relationship is considered to be sacred. However, what is to be sacred is dangerously becoming scary and shattering families due to outside conjugal relationships.”
Therefore to deal with the “social evil - extra-marital relationship,” the judges suo motu impleaded the Centre as well as the State government as respondents to the present habeas corpus petition and directed Assistant Solicitor General G. Karthikeyan and Additional Public Prosecutor M. Mohamed Riyaz to take notices on behalf of the respondents.
Series of questions
They sought answers from the governments to a series of questions which included the number of murders and other offences that had taken place in the country in the last 10 years due to extra-marital affairs, whether there was a phenomenal increase in such offences and whether spouses were engaging paid killers to get rid of their life partners.
“Is it a fact that the economic independence of both the spouses is responsible for spurt in extra-marital affairs? Is it a fact that the increase in illicit relationships is because of sexual dysfunctions or deficiencies of the spouses? Does the spurt in scandalous affairs due to internet which offers platforms, like, Facebook, Facetime, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc., giving many chances for strangers to get connected?” were the other questions.
The Division Bench further wanted to know whether the increase in clandestine relationship was due to westernisation of our culture and way of life and whether “illicit affairs happened due to invalidity of men due to their alcohol addiction?” The judges asked if lack of quality time spent by the spouses with each other deprived them of physical comfort and pleasure.
“Whether better public exposure of women, who rightly broke restrictive customs, and their mingling with third parties in their offices or professions are some of the reasons for clandestine relationship? Is it a fact that scandalous relationships are due to conduct of arranged marriages contrary to the wishes of the bride or bridegroom? Does mismatch of couples cause illicit intimacy?” the judges queried.
They further were eager to know whether breaking away of joint family system, non-teaching of moral and ethical values, forced marriages against the wishes of the bride or the groom were also reasons for such relationships.
The court also asked the governments to explain why not an expert committee headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court be constituted to analyse the reasons and suggest solutions to arrest the “evil” and as to why should not family counselling centres be established in every district to provide counselling to spouses.
