While hearing extramarital affair case, Delhi Court quotes 'The End of the Affair'

The court said that hotels usually owe their guests a duty of confidentiality and are required to protect the privacy of their records.

A Delhi Court quoted by writer Graham Greene's novel ‘The End of the Affair’ while upholding a woman and her lover's right to privacy. The court made the remark while rejecting a request by a Major in the Indian Army who alleged that his wife was having an extramarital affair with another Army officer, also a Major and sought CCTV footage of a hotel where both of them were allegedly together, 

The court said the idea that a man could steal another man’s wife is “dated” and takes away the woman’s choice.(PTI File)

While upholding the right to privacy of the Army officer’s wife and his alleged lover, the court quoted the novel during the hearing and 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,” it said.

Civil Judge Vaibhav Pratap Singh of Patiala House Court observed, “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 other legally justifiable entitlement to seek the data of the guest. Same would hold good for the booking details.”

‘No place for gender- condescension’

The court also said the idea that a woman has no responsibility while having an extramarital affair and a man could steal another man’s wife is “dated” and takes away the woman’s agency. “The dated 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,” said the court.

“Modern day Bharat has no place for gender- condescension and patriarchal notions,” the court added.

The court also said that hotels usually owe their guests a duty of confidentiality and are required to protect the privacy of their records, including booking details and CCTV footage. It raised the fact that the army officer’s wife and her alleged lover were not made parties to the lawsuit and thus the hotel releasing information about them would be “highly questionable”.

“…it is highly questionable whether the hotel can be compelled to release this information without joining these individuals as necessary or at least proper parties to the suit,” the court said.