Explainer - Law of a society is a living organism

• The Supreme Court ruled that Section 498A would also apply to partners in live-in relationships if an intention to marry is proven.

• Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code refers to a woman’s husband or his relatives subjecting her to cruelty.

• Section 498A of the IPC corresponds to Section 85 and Section 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

• The apex court’s verdict came after hearing an appeal filed against the Karnataka High Court’s refusal to quash proceedings under Section 498A and related charges. 

• The appellant argued there was no formal marriage and therefore the provision could not be invoked.

• A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N. Kotiswar Singh said a man in a live-in relationship can be prosecuted for subjecting a woman to cruelty if the relationship is in the nature of marriage.

The law is a living organism

• In its verdict, the Supreme Court said the law is a living organism, and its life comes more so from experience, and not merely logic.

• Any experience that is undergone by humans particularly has its own way of changing them. 

• The law that we use today is undoubtedly a human endeavour, and so experiences change it too. 

• In the earlier days, marriage was perceived as the only method by which two individuals could live together for a lifetime, and doing so without that was considered taboo. 

• Marriage was considered to be sacrosanct; which undoubtedly is a changing phenomenon. 

• Living together, prior to marriage, is not unheard of or unacceptable anymore. 

• In the same way, same sex relations, once criminalised and deemed to be a mental illness, have now been decriminalised and recognised as naturally occurring. 

• This is the evolution of societal standards. 

• In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes J, this is the law adopting new principles from life at one end and sloughing off old ones at the other end.

The ruling also quoted previous verdicts to stress this point.

1) Maganlal Chhaganlal (P) Ltd vs Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay (1974)

• Law, if it has to satisfy human needs and to meet the problems of life, must adapt itself to cope with new situations. 

• Nobody is so gifted with foresight that he can divine all possible human events in advance and prescribe proper rules for each of them. 

• There should not be much hesitation to abandon an untenable position when the rule to be discarded was in its origin the product of institutions or conditions which have gained a new significance or development with the progress of years. 

• It sometimes happens that the rule of law which grew up in remote generations may in the fullness of experience be found to serve another generation badly. 

• The court cannot allow itself to be tied down by and become captive of a view which in the light of the subsequent experience has been found to be patently erroneous, manifestly unreasonable or to cause hardship or to result in plain iniquity or public inconvenience. 

• The court has to keep the balance between the need of certainty and continuity and the desirability of growth and development of law.

2) Badshah vs Urmila Badshah Godse (2014)

• The law regulates relationships between people. It prescribes patterns of behaviour. It reflects the values of society. 

• The role of the court is to understand the purpose of law in society and to help the law achieve its purpose.

• But the law of a society is a living organism. It is based on a given factual and social reality that is constantly changing. 

• Sometimes change in law precedes societal change and is even intended to stimulate it. 

• In most cases, however, a change in law is the result of a change in social reality. 

• Indeed, when social reality changes, the law must change too. 

• Just as change in social reality is the law of life, responsiveness to change in social reality is the life of the law.