Right to privacy trumps Army Major’s bid for hotel CCTV in affair allegations

A Delhi court has dismissed a request by an Army Major who wanted CCTV footage and booking records from a hotel in Aerocity to support his claim that his wife was having an affair with a junior officer.

The court said the plea, which named only the hotel, went against the privacy rights of guests.

In an order dated May 22, Civil Judge Vaibhav Pratap Singh at Patiala House Courts rejected the officer’s request for a mandatory order directing the hotel to share CCTV footage from public areas and guest records for two days in January. The Major said the information was needed for his divorce case and for internal action within the Army.

The hotel opposed the request, saying CCTV footage is only stored for 90 days and the January footage was no longer available. It also said sharing guest details would break its commitment to protecting customer privacy.

Agreeing with the hotel, the court said, “There is an expectation of privacy when one visits a hotel and most hotels thrive on assurances of said privacy and discretion… The right to privacy and to be left alone in a hotel would extend to the common areas, as against a third party who was not present there and has no legally justifiable entitlement to seek the data.”

The judge added that the court cannot allow a wide-ranging search into the personal lives of people who aren’t part of the case. “It could lead to reputational harm,” the judge observed.

The court also said the Major was misusing the legal process. “Courts are not meant to serve as investigative bodies for private disputes or as instruments for the collection of evidence in internal proceedings, especially when no legal entitlement to that evidence exists,” the order read.

The judge pointed out that the Major only blamed the junior officer and not his wife. “The idea of a man stealing away the wife of another man, without ascribing any role or responsibility to the woman, is to be rejected. It takes agency away from women and dehumanises them,” the judge said.

The court also said the plaintiff’s selective blame and pursuit of the paramour “fails to acknowledge that adultery may not be the cause of a marriage’s failure — it may merely be a symptom”.

To close the order, the judge quoted author Graham Greene: “It is not the lover who has betrayed the marriage, but the one who made the vow and broke it. The outsider was never bound by it.”

Delhi