The court said Instagram chats alone were insufficient to establish a continuous course of adulterous conduct. Prayagraj : The Allahabad high court has held that a man cannot rely solely on social media messages to establish that his wife is continuously living in adultery and deny her maintenance, saying he must provide corroborative evidence of physical intimacy or cohabitation.
Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay was hearing a Sambhal man’s petition challenging the family court’s order at Chandausi granting maintenance to his wife on Oct 1. After finding that the messages exchanged on Instagram were not sufficient to establish the accusation of living in adultery, the HC, in its judgment dated Sept 29, dismissed the husband’s challenge against the family court order directing him to pay maintenance to his wife.
“Even if, for the sake of argument, the contents of the unverified chats were to be perused, mere text messages on a social media platform, without corroborative evidence of physical intimacy or cohabitation, are thoroughly insufficient to legally establish that the wife is continuously living in adultery,” the court said. The court explained that “living in adultery” — a ground for denying maintenance to a wife under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), or now Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) — denotes a continuous, ongoing and habitual course of adulterous conduct. “It does not encompass a single, fleeting lapse, nor can it be inferred from mere conversational interactions, professional associations, or unsubstantiated suspicions. For a man to successfully non-suit a wife’s claim for maintenance at the threshold, he must present clear and cogent evidence,” the court added.
The court also observed that electronic evidence requires strict verification in accordance with Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act due to the inherent vulnerabilities of digital data.
In the present case, it said, the man had not produced the mandatory statutory certification.