No Interference Called For: SC on Husband’s Hotel Records
Top Court Declines to Interfere with High Court Ruling in Divorce Case Alleging Adultery
GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 8th July: The Supreme Court has refused to interfere with a Delhi High Court order allowing a woman to summon her husband’s hotel booking records and call detail records to support allegations of adultery in ongoing divorce proceedings.
A bench of Justices Manmohan and K. Vinod Chandran dismissed the husband’s appeal, holding that no interference was warranted with the orders passed by the Family Court and the Delhi High Court. The records will be produced before the Family Court in a sealed cover.
The case relates to a divorce petition in which the wife accused her husband of cruelty and adultery, alleging that he stayed at a hotel in Jaipur with another woman in April 2022. After CCTV footage was unavailable due to the hotel’s data retention policy, she sought hotel booking details, identity documents of occupants, payment records and the husband’s call detail records.
The husband challenged the Family Court’s order, arguing that disclosure of the records would violate his fundamental right to privacy. However, the Delhi High Court ruled that the wife was seeking evidence she reasonably believed could establish her allegation of adultery, which is generally proved through circumstantial evidence.
By declining to interfere, the Supreme Court affirmed that Family Courts can permit the production of relevant evidence in matrimonial disputes while safeguarding privacy through measures such as sealed-cover proceedings.
