A Delhi court has upheld the right to privacy in a case involving allegations of an extramarital affair between two Indian Army officers, both Majors.

The court rejected a plea seeking access to CCTV footage from a hotel, where the alleged affair was said to have taken place.

The petition was filed by a Major who accused his wife of being involved with another officer. However, Civil Judge Vaibhav Pratap Singh refused to entertain the request for hotel surveillance data, emphasizing that the individuals in question — despite the allegations — had a right to privacy.

As reported by LiveLaw, the court held that hotels are duty-bound to safeguard the confidentiality of their guests, including their booking details and presence in common areas. “The right to privacy and to be left alone in a hotel would extend to the common areas as against a third party who was not present there and has no other legally justifiable entitlement to seek the data of the guest. Same would hold good for the booking details,” the court observed.

Notably, the judge raised concerns that neither the wife nor the alleged lover was made a party to the lawsuit, even though they were central to the dispute. Compelling the hotel to release private information without giving them an opportunity to be heard would violate both their right to privacy and principles of natural justice, the court said. It added that doing so could also cause reputational harm.

The judge reiterated that civil courts are not investigative agencies and cannot be used as tools to gather evidence in personal or internal matters. He advised the complainant to explore remedies under the Army Act, 1950 and related service rules, instead of bypassing institutional mechanisms through the judiciary.

In a literary reference, Judge Singh quoted Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair, noting, “It is not the lover who has betrayed the marriage, but the one who made the vow and broke it. The outsider was never bound by it.”

The order also cited the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Joseph Shine v. Union of India, which decriminalized adultery and struck down the colonial-era law. The judgment had rejected the archaic idea that a man could "steal" a woman’s affections, implying that women lack agency in such matters.

Judge Singh underscored that such notions are outdated and dehumanizing, adding that modern India has moved beyond patriarchal thinking — as reflected in Parliament’s decision to omit adultery provisions in the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).