In an important decision, the Madhya Pradesh High Court held that a wife’s WhatsApp chats, even if accessed by her husband without her consent, can be tendered as evidence in divorce proceedings to prove charges of adultery.
The court noted that by Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, family courts are allowed to consider any material that can help settle disputes even if the material in question would not be admissible normally under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. The judgment held that a husband can place such chats before courts to substantiate allegations of extramarital affairs or cruelty.
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In the present case, the husband had pulled out his wife’s personal WhatsApp messages through a tracking application secretly installed in her phone. The chats purportedly unearthed an extramarital affair with some other man. Relying on the same, he has filed for divorce on charges of cruelty and adultery.
The legal team representing the wife objected to the filing of the chats on grounds that it represented a violation of her right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution and contravened sections of the Information Technology Act—Sections 43, 66, and 72.
Overruling these objections, the High Court declared that although the right to privacy is certainly a fundamental right, it is not an absolute right that can never be overridden in the cause of justice. The court relied on past Supreme Court decisions to support its stand that privacy rights are open to reasonable restrictions, especially when balanced against the right to a fair trial.
But the court entrusted the matter to the discretion of the family court to decide whether or not to depend on the WhatsApp messages as credible evidence in the ultimate verdict.
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