Why the Supreme Court upheld a wife's right to access husband's hotel room records

📌 Summary:

• SC (Justices Manmohan and K Vinod Chandran) refused to interfere with a Delhi HC order allowing a wife to summon her husband's hotel booking records and call detail records (CDRs) to support adultery allegations in divorce proceedings; records to be produced before the Family Court in sealed cover

• Facts: wife alleged the husband stayed at a Jaipur hotel with another woman (April 2022); hotel CCTV had been deleted under retention policy, so she sought booking records, ID documents, payment details and CDRs; Family Court allowed it, husband challenged on privacy grounds

• Legal basis: Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 gives Family Courts 'very wide powers' to receive any report, statement, document or information that assists resolution — whether or not admissible under the Evidence Act

• Balancing act: relying on KS Puttaswamy (privacy not absolute) and Joseph Shine, the HC held the wife's need for evidence outweighed privacy objections — records related only to the husband and stay in sealed cover; adultery remains a divorce ground under the Hindu Marriage Act despite decriminalisation

• Linked precedent: in July 2025 the SC (Justices Nagarathna and S C Sharma) held secretly recorded spousal conversations admissible in matrimonial disputes, reading Section 122 Evidence Act narrowly — it protects the sanctity of marriage, not individual privacy; a recording phone is like an 'eavesdropper'

• Trend: courts increasingly balance privacy claims against evidentiary needs in family disputes

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 — right to privacy (Article 21) and its limits, judiciary balancing fundamental rights; useful for questions on Puttaswamy's evolving application

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Section 14, Family Courts Act 1984: Family Courts may receive evidence inadmissible under the Evidence Act
• Joseph Shine (2018) decriminalised adultery; it remains a civil ground for divorce
• Section 122, Evidence Act: spousal communication privilege — read narrowly in 2025

🔑 Key Term: Sealed cover — court-supervised confidential submission of sensitive records, here used to protect privacy while admitting evidence