The Supreme Court ruled that secretly recorded phone conversations between a husband and wife can be used as evidence in divorce cases. This decision overturned a previous order by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had said that recording a wife’s phone calls without her permission was a clear violation of her privacy.

The ruling came in a case where a husband had used a Compact Disc (CD) containing secretly recorded calls of his wife as evidence in a divorce case. The Family Court in Bathinda had accepted this CD as evidence to support his claims of cruelty under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. However, the wife challenged this, and the High Court had ruled in her favour.

The case was later taken to the Supreme Court through a Special Leave Petition (SLP) against Justice Lisa Gill’s judgement of the High Court.

The Supreme Court bench, made up of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, said, "If the marriage has reached a stage where spouses are actively snooping on each other, that is in itself a symptom of a broken relationship and denotes a lack of trust between them."

The court also said that such recordings can be accepted as evidence in family disputes. It explained that the spousal privilege under Section 122 of the Indian Evidence Act does not give complete protection in such matters.

"We do not think there is any breach of privacy in this case. In fact, Section 122 of the Evidence Act does not recognise any such right. On the other hand, it carves out an exception to the right to privacy between spouses and therefore cannot be applied horizontally at all," the Supreme Court said.

You might also be interested in: Former Miss Puducherry San Rechal Gandhi dies after reported suicide attempt