New Delhi : Can a consensual relationship between two unmarried adults be used to question a person’s character? In a judgment with implications far beyond a single recruitment dispute, the Supreme Court has answered both questions with a firm no. At a time when pre-marital relationships still continue to attract social stigma and often find their way into courtrooms, the country’s highest court has said that a physical relationship between two consenting unmarried adults cannot by itself become a basis for judging someone’s character.
“Physical relationship between two consenting unmarried adults cannot and should not by itself be a ground to draw an adverse impression about the character of the person in that relationship. There is no law which prohibits two consenting unmarried adults to have a relationship of their choice,” a bench of Justices Manmohan and Manoj Misra said, as reported by Bar and Bench. But the judgment went much further than deciding whether one candidate deserved a government job.
The bench took on a question that increasingly sits at the intersection of law, society and personal liberty: should adults be penalised for consensual relationships that do not end in marriage? “Not every relationship culminates in marriage. Therefore, merely because the relationship did not culminate in marriage is no ground to believe that one party has cheated the other,” the judgment said, as quoted by Bar and Bench.
According to the bench, pre-marital relationships are a reality of contemporary society and institutions must be sensitive to changing times rather than rely on rigid assumptions rooted in the past. In one of the most significant parts of the ruling, the judges said that where two adults remain in a relationship for a considerable period, there is a presumption that the relationship was based on valid consent.
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