The Supreme Court of India has affirmed a conviction for criminal intimidation against an individual who threatened to share a woman’s private video on social media platforms, specifically Facebook, if she persisted in her requests for marriage. This decision was handed down in the case of Vijayakumar v. State of Tamil Nadu.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and NK Singh determined that the act of threatening to publish intimate footage online constitutes an accusation of unchastity, as outlined under Part II of Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with criminal intimidation. The Court emphasized that such threats are reasonably interpreted as damaging to the woman’s reputation.
The Justices stated, “There can be no doubt that such a video as is alleged to exist and the making of a threat to upload it on Facebook would reasonably be considered to impute unchastity to the prosecutrix by publication.”
Furthermore, the Court clarified that the absence of physical evidence, such as the video or the recording device, does not invalidate a conviction for criminal intimidation. “The law does not mandate that recovery of an article of crime is sine qua non for conviction of an offence,” the Bench noted. They reasoned that the critical aspect is whether the woman genuinely believed the video existed and whether the threat caused her alarm and distress.
The case originated from a 2015 complaint by a woman who asserted that the accused secretly recorded her while she was bathing and later threatened to distribute the video online. This occurred after the accused initially promised marriage but retracted the offer when she insisted on pursuing the relationship. While a trial court acquitted the accused of rape, deceitful inducement of marriage, and voyeurism, it found him guilty under Part II of Section 506 IPC for criminal intimidation. The Madras High Court upheld this conviction.
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On appeal to the Supreme Court, the accused argued that his conviction should not stand since the lower courts acquitted him of other charges and the alleged video was never recovered. The Supreme Court dismissed these arguments, affirming that criminal intimidation is a separate offense that can be proven on its own merits. The Court upheld the conviction but reduced the sentence to time already served, considering the incident’s occurrence in 2015.
The judgment also addressed the evolving understanding of ‘unchastity’ in the context of digital privacy and sexual autonomy. It underscored that dignity and privacy in the digital age are intimately linked to personal control over intimate information and online reputation. The Court remarked that a woman’s autonomy involves her right to determine what remains private. Any unauthorized interference with such autonomy, it stated, could be construed as imputing unchastity.
The appellant was represented by Advocate MP Parthiban, while Advocate Sabarish Subramanian represented the State.
