In Brief
A husband in a divorce proceeding sought to submit secretly recorded telephonic conversations with his wife as evidence to prove allegations of cruelty. The High Court rejected the evidence, holding that secretly recording conversations without the other spouse's knowledge violates her right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court reversed this decision. It held that while Section 122 of the Indian Evidence Act protects spousal communications to preserve marital harmony, this privilege does not apply in suits between married persons (divorce proceedings). The rationale for the privilege is to foster mutual confidence, not to protect privacy. Therefore, in divorce cases, secretly recorded conversations are admissible if they satisfy the established test for electronic evidence: relevance, voice identification, and proof of accuracy. The right to privacy cannot be invoked to exclude relevant evidence when the spousal privilege exception applies.
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