Top court in India decrees adultery is no longer a crime

NEW DELHI — India’s top court on Thursday struck down a 158-year law that punished people for having extramarital affairs, effectively decriminalizing adultery.

The verdict is latest of a string of progressive judgments from India’s top court.

Until Thursday, Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code gave a maximum sentence of five years to anyone who had sex with a married woman, “without the consent or connivance” of her husband. The married woman was exempt from punishment, but her partner was not.

The partners of adulterous married men, meanwhile, did not face equal consequences under the law.

The law was used as a blackmail tool to keep women in unhappy marriages or prevent them from claiming alimony in divorce proceedings.