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Revenge Porn and its Legal Remedies in India

Jul. 30, 2020   •   Madri Chandak

Profile of the Author: Arpita Prakash is a 2nd year Law student pursuing B.A. LL.B (Hons) from University Law College, Gauhati University.

Introduction:

In the present world, where one click on the internet can open the door to a whole new world, privacy has undoubtedly become priceless and difficult; people crave to display other’s personal space. Digitalization has been both blessing and curse. Increase in digitalization has also increased crimes in the virtual world; one of such cybercrime is revenge porn. In this era of free and unlimited internet, revenge pornography has come out as a modern tool to use against people for egoistic desires and torture the victim both mentally and physically.

In India, incidents of revenge porn may not be on the news headlines frequently, but in a country where rape videos trend on porn sites, how safe are people from revenge porn?

What is Revenge Porn?

Revenge porn is the distribution of sexually explicit images or video of individuals without their consent. The sexually explicit images or video may be made by a partner of an intimate relationship with the knowledge and consent of the subject, or it may be made without their knowledge.

Legal Remedies:

Women in India suffer from being subjected to crime and sexual violence on a daily basis. Even with all the sufferings, most of such crimes usually go unreported due to fear of society and stigmas. Technological advancement has led to heinous crimes, but revenge porn is commonly suffered. The problem with revenge porn is that once the image or video is posted on a site, it can be accessed by anyone. Even if it is deleted from the site, anyone who has a copy of it can upload it somewhere else. It keeps circulating.

However, in India, at present, there is no specific law to deal with revenge porn. However, there are various sections enacted in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT act) which are used to sentence the offenders.

Under Indian Penal Code, 1860 section 292, 354C, 499 and 509 attracts a conviction. The relevant provision entails:

Section 292: sells, lets to hire, distributes, publicly exhibits or in any manner puts into circulation etc of obscene materials etc.

Section 354C: Voyeurism: Any man who watches, or captures the image of a woman engaging in private act circumstances where she would usually have the expectation of not being observed either by the perpetrator or by any other person at the behest of the perpetrator or disseminates such image.

Section 499: Defamation: Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter expected, to defame that person.

Section 509: Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman: Whoever, intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.

Under the Information Technology Act, 2000 section 66E, 67, 67A and 72 attracts a conviction. The relevant provision entails:

Section 66E: Punishment for violation of privacy: Whoever, intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding two lakh rupees, or with both.

Section 67: Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form.[2]

Section 67A: Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form.[3]

Section 72: Penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy.[4]

Case Law:

In a landmark judgement, State of West Bengal v Animesh Boxi, the judicial magistrate of Tamluk District Court (West Bengal) found Animesh Boxi, a final year engineering student guilty of uploading intimate and videos of his former girlfriend on porn websites. He was sentenced to 5-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 9000. He had been charged under section 354A/354C/354D/509 of Indian Penal Code and sections 66E/66C/67/67A Information Technology Act 2000 (Amendment 2008).

The Court reasoned that Boxi had demanded sexual favours from the victim and captured images of her in circumstances where she would not have expected to have been observed, distributed these images and stalked her thoroughly online. It said that the lack of physical injury to the victim was irrelevant because injury to reputation fell within the ambit of ‘injury’ as laid down in Section 44 of the IPC.

Conclusion:

While there has been much debate over the effectiveness of laws to ensure that every woman is provided security across the board, there needs to be a holistic approach to the problems encountered in such regard. There could be two avenues of approach that need to be simultaneously looked like the roots of the problem- awareness and implementation. Raising awareness involves more than mere campaigns and slogans; it needs to be a topic of discourse in public life rather than shunned as a taboo in society. For this purpose, the inclusion of the topic in the school curriculum would go a long way towards sensitising the future of the nation. Revenge porn has evolved from uploading images and videos of the victim without consent to the making and sharing memes and stickers to laugh at the expense of the victim’s mental and emotional harassment. People think it’s OKAY to say: ‘You shouldn’t have taken the pictures.’ Would you tell a rape victim she shouldn’t have worn a short skirt?

Disclaimer: This article is an original submission of the Author. Niti Manthan does not hold any liability arising out of this article. Kindly refer to our Terms of use or write to us in case of any concerns.


FAQs:

Q. What are some statistics revolving around Revenge Porn in India?

Ans. Statistics around revenge porn cases are not available in India properly. However, as per the National Crime Records Bureau data, there was a 104 per cent spike in the volume of obscene content shared electronically between 2012 and 2014 alone. A 2010 cyber-crime report revealed that just 35 per cent of women report their victimisation. It also states that 18.3 per cent of women were not even aware that they had been victimised. [5]

References

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn

[2] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1318767/

[3] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/15057582/

[4] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1480903/

[5] https://www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/in-focus/article/revenge-porn-how-it-destroys-lives-and-how-to-deal-with-the-menace/


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