Man installs camera to catch cheating wife

A woman’s long-drawn hide-and-seek game of extra-marital affair came to an end after her husband, a bank employee, caught her with her boyfriend on camera.

The Digital Video Recorder (DVR) footage brought great relief for the husband by getting dissolution of marriage who suffered for years with his wife’s adulterous behavior.

A division bench of Karnataka High Court comprising Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice P G M Patil upheld the order of the Principal Judge of Family Court in Ballari, observing that “It is a well-settled proposition of law that onus lies on the person who alleges the adultery and the standard of proof is the same as in a civil case that is preponderance of probability and not beyond reasonable doubt. It is equally well-settled in law that adultery cannot be proved by way of direct evidence and an inference with regard to the same can be drawn by circumstantial evidence.”

Background

Arun Kumar, (name changed) a single-window operator at a nationalised bank in Ballari was married to Sahana (name changed) in 1991. Both lived together and two daughters were born in lawful wedlock.

However, Arun Kumar filed a petition in 2008 seeking dissolution of marriage on the grounds of cruelty and adultery.

The husband’s contention was that his wife was an ‘uncultured and ill-tempered’ woman, and within six months of marriage, she started quarreling with him and created ugly scenes in the locality.

Meanwhile, he came to know that some unknown “male persons” were visiting his house in his absence. Once Arun came to the house during banking hours, he found a man in the house and on inquiry, Sahana told the person (Jagadish) was looking for his pup. After that incident, he was told on several occasions that she was seen on a motorbike with a third person.

Wary of the repeated incidents, Arun installed a “moving camera” with DVR before leaving to Bengaluru on his official duty. He left home on June 4, 2008, and returned to Ballari on June 9.

In his absence, Sahana indulged in sexual activities with Jagadish in the house and it was caught on the camera.

The family court saw the contents of the DVR in the presence of the counsels of both parties. The court also observed that "the recordings have been done without any interruption and events have happened naturally within the vicinity of the camera”.

Dismissing the petition filed by Sahana, the division bench upheld the family court’s decision. The family court had noted that the video recordings show that Sahana had sex with Jagadish not only on one occasion, she was in company with him even on the day Arun returned to his house from Bengaluru.