Chhattisgarh High Court Rules Secretly Recording Wife’s Phone Conversations Violates Privacy

The Chhattisgarh High Court recently ruled that secretly recording a person’s phone conversations without their consent is a breach of their right to privacy as protected under Article 21. This decision led to the overturning of a family court’s ruling in a case where a woman had sought maintenance from her husband. The 38-year-old woman had filed a maintenance application against her 44-year-old husband in Mahasamund district’s family court, an ongoing case since 2019.

The husband, aiming to challenge his wife’s claims, presented recorded conversations from her smartphone as evidence. He argued that these recordings showed her involvement in adultery, potentially relieving him of any obligation to pay maintenance post-divorce. The family court, in an order from October 21, 2021, accepted the husband’s application for further examination of his wife based on the recordings.

In response, the woman approached the High Court in 2022, contesting the family court’s decision. Her lawyer argued that the family court’s decision infringed upon her right to privacy since the conversations had been recorded without her knowledge, making them inadmissible evidence. The lawyer cited previous judgments from the Supreme Court and the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.

Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey of the High Court, on October 5, 2023, overturned the family court’s verdict. He emphasized that the husband’s action of secretly recording his wife’s phone conversations without her knowledge amounted to a violation of her right to privacy, a fundamental component of the right to life as outlined in Article 21.

Re-reported from the article originally published in The India English