The National Commission of Women chief Rekha Sharma welcomed the judgement striking down the adultery law saying it should have been removed long time ago.


"This is a law from the British era, although British had done away with it long back, we were still stuck with it," she said. Her views were echoed by many lawyers and activists.


While adultery should not be a criminal offence, the bench held that adultery should continue to be treated as civil wrong, and can be grounds for dissolution of marriage or divorce. There can't be any social licence which destroys a home, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said.


Section 497 of the 158-year-old IPC says: "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery."


Adultery was punishable by a maximum five years in jail or fine or both. The apex court pronounced four sets of concurring judgements to declare penal provision on Adultery and section 198 of CrPC dealing with prosecution of offences against marriage as unconstitutional.