In a significant ruling, the Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that private WhatsApp chats can be admitted as evidence in matrimonial disputes under Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, even if obtained without the consent of the partner or deemed inadmissible under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
Justice Ashish Shroti, delivering the order, stated that the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution is not absolute and may yield to the right to a fair trial, which also arises under Article 21. “Since no fundamental right under our Constitution is absolute, in the event of conflict between two fundamental rights, as in this case, a contest between the right to privacy and the right to fair trial… the right to privacy may have to yield to the right to fair trial,†the court observed.
The order came while hearing a petition filed by a woman challenging a Family Court decision that allowed her husband to produce WhatsApp chats between her and a third party as evidence to support allegations of adultery. The husband had accessed the chats through a special application secretly installed on the wife's mobile phone, which automatically forwarded her conversations to his device.
Arguing before the High Court, the wife’s counsel submitted that the act of secretly installing the application without her consent was illegal and violated her right to privacy. It was further argued that evidence obtained through such means should not be admissible in court.
However, the husband's counsel maintained that the chats were crucial to proving the allegation of an extramarital affair and relied on Section 14 of the Family Courts Act. The provision allows Family Courts to admit any material that, in the court’s view, may assist in effectively resolving a matrimonial dispute, even if such material is otherwise inadmissible under standard evidence rules.
Justice Shroti agreed with this interpretation, observing that Section 14 was designed to free Family Courts from the strict procedural constraints of the Indian Evidence Act. “The only test under Section 14 for a Family Court to receive the evidence, whether collected legitimately or otherwise, is based upon its subjective satisfaction that the evidence would assist it to deal effectually with the dispute,†the court said.
