Revenge Porn can land in you jail
By Kriti Shukla
Author’s note
“You just ended a toxic relationship and got rid of all the drama, but now comes another problem. Your ex has started blackmailing you with your compromising pictures, asking you for favors, or luring you into doing something against your will or consent. Or even if it’s just to cause you mental stress for whatever other absurd reasons.”
Not only is this illegal, but also a criminal offense in India amounting to imprisonment of seven years in the worst case scenario.
The post here focuses on the actions that you can take if you ever fall into such a predicament and also briefly elaborates over the consequences that such a person will experience according to law.
Table of Contents
3. What are the consequences faced by an offender?
b. For sharing without your consent
What Revenge Porn means
Revenge porn is a form of non-consensual pornography, which is the distribution of sexual graphic images of an individual without their consent. The images may or may not have been taken with the consent of the partner. In such cases, a person deliberately releases explicit sexual content of another in order to cause mental distress or harm to their reputation.
What should a victim do?
There is no law in India that specifically lays down the provision against revenge porn and its victims. Due to this the police fall back on such cases and mostly rely on the Information Technology Act, but there are provisions under IPC that would help the victim to a certain extent. In such cases, the victim can file a complaint in the cyber cell by either visiting it or by registering your complaint online.
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In this case, the question mostly asked is if the person allows to take photos or videos? If he or she agrees to take private photos, it is not a crime to take them. But if he or she expects them to remain with certain people, then sharing them with others is a crime, which is more elaborately mentioned in the following paragraphs.
There has been a conviction in the case ‘State of West Bengal v Animesh Boxi’, by the Tamluk District Court (West Bengal). It was the first case of conviction by the state against cybercrime. The victim was in a relationship with the defendant for 3 yrs. During the course of time the defendant demanded private and nude pictures from the victim. Victim did send him private pictures but refused to give him nude pictures. Defendant copied nude pictures from her phone and started blackmailing her that if she does not go on an outing with him he will publish the photos on the internet. On refusal by the victim, the defendant published the content on porn site.
The Judicial Magistrate First Class in his judgment convicted the accused with the imprisonment of 5 years and a fine of 9000 INR.
What are the consequences faced by an offender?
Before talking about offenders it is important to note that they are not always males. These offences are not against a gender alone and many men have also been victims to revenge porn in India. Therefore, most of the laws against non-consensual pornography is also gender neutral.
For violating your privacy
Privacy is your fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian constitution and you have full rights to claim it in the court of law.
Your right to privacy in cyberspace is specifically protected under Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000. This section deals with the offence of violating a person’s privacy by transmitting or publishing an image of a private area of that person, which will lead to an imprisonment of three years or fine of two lakhs or both.
For sharing without your consent
First of all, clicking your pictures while engaged in a private act of sexual nature is itself a crime.
Section 354C of IPC (Voyeurism), states that if any man watches or captures an image of a woman engaged in a private activity with no knowledge of offender, will be imprisoned for a term of three years on first conviction and for a term of 7 years on second or subsequent conviction.
However, even if the pictures clicked with your consent during the course of the relationship or any other reasons and you have not consented to its distribution, is also an offence according to clause (2) of this section.
Section 67A of the IT Act, punishes those who publishes or transmits any image portraying a sexually explicit act in an electronic form, with an imprisonment for a term of 5 years and a fine of 10 lakhs on first conviction and an imprisonment if 7 years and a fine of 10 lakhs on second or subsequent conviction.
It is also an offence under Section 2(c) of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986, which states that, “Indecent representation of women” means the depiction of the figure, form or part of the body of a woman in any manner which is derogatory or belittling, or corrupts the public morality. This is punishable under Section 4 of the same Act.
Even a gesture or an utterance of a word to someone with an intention to insult your modesty or intrude your privacy (if you are a woman, again specified) is punishable under Section 509 of IPC.
Conclusion
Revenge porn is a crime, but it has not been defined or punished in any Indian statute per se.
However, legal professionals understand that Revenge Porn is a crime which consists of several offences combined and, hence, can be punished on the basis of the particular combination of offences.
In a country like India, where the majority is still uncomfortable discussing sexual relationships, which often results in victim blaming.
The need of the hour is to make people aware that all kinds of crimes involving Revenge porn is punishable in India.
More importantly, both men and women are possible victims to this crime. And both the genders can be punished.
Edited by Om Patil
