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Wife's WhatsApp chats can be used as evidence in divorce: MP High Court

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that a woman's private WhatsApp chats, accessed without her consent, can still be admissible as evidence in divorce proceedings under Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, LiveLaw reported. The court emphasised that while the right to privacy is enshrined as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, it is not absolute and can be subject to reasonable restrictions—particularly when it clashes with another constitutional guarantee: the right to a fair trial. What is the case? The case involved a couple from Gwalior who got married on December 1, 2016. They had a daughter the following year. But the relationship soon soured. In 2018, the husband moved court, seeking divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act. He alleged cruelty and adultery, backing his claims with WhatsApp chats retrieved from his wife's phone via an app he had installed without her knowledge. These chats, he claimed, proved that she was involved in an extramarital affair. The family court in Gwalior allowed the chats to be admitted as evidence in April 2024. Meanwhile, the wife challenged this order in the high court, arguing that her fundamental right to privacy had been breached and that the chats were gathered illegally, violating Sections 43, 66, and 72 of the Information Technology Act. Her counsel argued that the husband's act of installing spyware on her phone was unlawful and that evidence collected through such methods should be deemed inadmissible. The high court, however, disagreed. What did the court say? While recognising the wife's right to privacy, the bench stated that in matters of legal dispute, the right to a fair trial holds equal—if not greater—weight. The court leaned on important Supreme Court verdicts, including Sharda v Dharmpal and Justice KS Puttaswamy v Union of India, to make its point. 'It is a settled concept of fair trial that a litigating party gets a fair chance to bring relevant evidence before the court… the right to privacy may have to yield to the right to fair trial,' the court said in its judgement. The bench explained that Section 14 of the Family Courts Act was purposefully created to allow more flexibility in admitting evidence in family-related disputes, even if such evidence would not be admissible under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. The court clarified that merely admitting such material as evidence does not imply that its content is accepted as true. That responsibility lies with the family court, which must examine the authenticity, relevance, and credibility of the chats. 'Merely admitting evidence on record is not proof of a fact-in-issue,' the high court said. 'The family court is free to either accept, discard, or assign weight to any piece of evidence during the adjudication process.' The bench further said that allowing such chats to be presented in court does not absolve the person who obtained them of legal liability. 'Such evidence must be received and treated with caution and circumspection, and the possibility of tampering must be ruled out,' it added.