Man's Familiarity With A Woman Doesn't Entitle Him To Circulate Her Objectionable Images & Malign Her Image: P&H High Court

The Bench of Justice Avneesh Jhingan was hearing the plea of a man seeking pre-arrest bail under Section 354 and 354-A IPC and Section 66 of the Information and Technology Act, 2000.

The matter before the Court

The FIR was lodged at the instance of the prosecutrix, wherein it was alleged that the petitioner (seeking pre-arrest bail) had circulated certain photographs of the prosecutrix on whatsapp and sent/delivered certain offensive messages on her mobile.

On gaining knowledge of acts of him, the prosecutrix informed her parents who tried to get respectablez of the village involved in the matter. However, on 26^th August 2020, he again circulated photographs.

Allegedly, in August 2020, he forcibly dragged her in his shop and did obscene acts. On her resistance, she was threatened to be eliminated.

Arguments by the petitioner

The petitioner's Counsel contended that the prosecutrix and the petitioner are known to each other since long as they are co-villagers. It was submitted that prosecutrix is major and the reliance was upon photographs to submit that the prosecutrix had relations with the petitioner

Court's order

While denying him the benefit of The Court observed,

"There is no date on the photographs and moreover even assuming that these photographs were earlier in time, this is not enough to permit the petitioner to malign the image of a girl."

The Court also noted that during the investigation, it was found that objectionable material was used by petitioner on social media and after the matter was investigated by the Cyber Cell and on receiving the report, the FIR was registered.

Lastly, considering the seriousness of the allegations and noting that this being a case where custodial interrogation would be necessary to recover the material available with the petitioner against the prosecutrix, the Court found that no case was made out for anticipatory bail.

In related news, the Allahabad High Court last month refused to quash an FIR against a man who is accused of posting nude snaps of her wife (Informant) on WhatsApp.

Dismissing man's Criminal Miscellaneous Writ Petition, the Bench of Justice Pankaj Naqvi and Justice Vivek Agarwal remarked,

"Allegations of commission of offence as are mentioned under Section 67 of the I.T. Act are also prima facie made out inasmuch as there is specific allegation of putting nude pictures of the informant on WhatsApp. Therefore, merely because petitioner is husband of the informant, does not constitute a valid ground to quash the FIR."

Also, the Himachal Pradesh High Court had, in October 2020, denied the benefit of Anticipatory Bail to a Husband accused of posting and uploading nude photographs of his wife in the public domain.

Calling it "not only serious but a heinous crime", the Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur had observed that,

"Posting and uploading nude photographs of the spouse, particularly of wife, in public domain amounts to betray the mutual trust and confidence which marital relations imply."

Case title - Gagandeep Sharma v. State of Punjab [CRM-M-44273 of 2020]

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