India’s top court rules adultery no longer a crime

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Adultery is no longer a crime, India’s top court ruled Thursday, declaring a colonial-era law that punished the offence with jail time unconstitutional and discriminatory against women.

The more than century-old law prescribed that any man who slept with a married woman without her husband’s permission had committed adultery, a crime carrying a five-year prison term in the conservative country.

A petitioner had challenged the court to strike down the law, describing it as arbitrary and discriminatory against women.