'Admissible As Evidence': SC Sets Aside Ruling On Secretly Recorded Conversation Of Spouse
The Supreme Court on Monday overturned a Punjab and Haryana High Court order that termed recording a wife's phone calls without her consent a violation of privacy.
The Supreme Court on Monday set aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court's judgment, holding that recording a wife's telephonic conversation without her knowledge or consent amounts to a 'clear breach" of her fundamental right of privacy.
The High Court had also observed that such recordings cannot be admitted in evidence before a family court.
A bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma thus held that a secretly recorded telephonic conversation of the spouse is admissible as evidence in matrimonial proceedings.
'Some arguments have been made that permitting such evidence would jeopardise domestic harmony and matrimonial relationships as it would encourage snooping on the spouses, therefore, infringing the objective of section 122 of the Evidence Act."
'We don't think such an argument is tenable. 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 bench observed while pronouncing the judgment.
The remarks by the top court came after a Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court's decision.
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First Published:
July 14, 2025, 11:12 IST
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