Supreme Court of India: Adultery Law Biased against Men

The Supreme Court of India on 1 December 2011 stated that section497 of the Indian penal Code is biased against men. The section punishes a man alone for adultery for having consensual sex with a married woman. 
As per the observation of the court, the provision of section 497 reduces a married woman to a property of the husband and it punishes man only despite the fact that the woman with whom he had consensual sex was an equal partner in the alleged crime. The court added that the provision is under criticism from certain sections for showing a strong gender bias.  A bench of the Supreme Court including Justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha made the  above observation.

Section 497 of IPC
Section 497 of IPC states that 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, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case, the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.