Justice over Privacy?

The recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the admissibility of secretly recorded spousal conversations as admissible evidence in matrimonial disputes has put to rest the critical privacy-versus-proof conundrum

- SOMESH GOYAL

In a matrimonial case (Vibhor Garg v. Neha), the Supreme Court of India, through a landmark judgment, has accepted the admissibility of secretly recorded conversations between a married couple as reliable evidence.

One Vibhor Garg had filed a divorce petition in the Family Court, Bathinda, Punjab, on the grounds of mental cruelty against his wife, Neha, under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The petitioner recorded conversations between him and his wife over a period of time without the consent and knowledge of his wife to buttress his allegations of mental cruelty. The evidence was admitted by the Family Court.

However, on appeal against the Family Court's decision, the High Court of Punjab & Haryana took an opposing view of the secretly recorded calls, holding them to be violative of the fundamental right to privacy as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Justice Lisa Gill held that the conversations were in clear breach of the privacy rights, and set aside the decision of the Family Court.

Aggrieved by this decision of the High Court, the petitioner approached the Supreme Court which, on July 14, 2025, ruled in favour of the husband by accepting the recorded conversations, even though they were made without the consent and knowledge of the spouse.

The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, used the recorded conversations to conclude that the marriage in question had reached the point of a broken relationship, where one spouse was actively snooping on the other, denoting a complete lack of trust between them, the very bedrock of a marriage.

In essence, the Supreme Court admitted the recorded conversations to decide on the broken marriage rather than an absolute question of privacy laws.