Read Time: 07 minutes
In a matter pertaining to indecent videotaping of a minor girl and then blackmailing her, Allahabad High Court dismissed culprit's bail plea stating that it's one of such serious offences to which in this age of information technology society is still struggling to put a stop.
The Single-judge bench of Justice Ajay Bhanot observed, "Circulating indecent videos of young children and blackmailing them for gains are very serious offences in this age of information technology. The society is still struggling to evolve methods to deal with this menace."
Dismissing accused Narendra Singh's bail petition, the court further directed the trial court to make all endeavors to ensure that this criminal case is decided within a period of one year.
The victim girl, who was of 14 years of age, had categorically stated before the bench that an indecent video depicting her in an inappropriate manner was recorded and Narendra Singh had blackmailed and threatened her to propagate the indecent video among the public at large.
Also, opposing accused's bail plea, Additional Advocate General had further argued that the victim child was of tender age and accused's acts were such which had clearly depicted that he could threaten her and influence the course of the trial.
Therefore, taking note of the facts and circumstances of the matter, the court concluded that at this stage, no case for bail was made out.
In offences against women, videotapping of the crime committed against the victim or threatening to misuse their private videos is a very common occurance.
Recently, in a somewhat similar case, a 14-year girl was raped and afterward the entire family was being pressurized to convert their religion by the accused persons. The accused persons had recorded the video of the heinous crime, and were threatening victim girl's father that if he didn't get his whole family converted to their religion, they will circulate the video.
In this case also, bench of Justice Ajit Singh had refused to grant bail to the accused persons taking note of the seriousness of the crime.
In another case, where alleged former lover of the victim woman had tried to distort/ damage her reputaiton by sending her private messages and photographs to her mother and sister, the Allahabad High Court had rejected accused's bail plea.
The bench of Justice Saurabh Lavania had then observed that “Capturing the images and videos with consent of the woman cannot justify the misuse of such content once the relation between the victim and accused gets strained ."
It is to be noted that attempts are being regularly made to curb these kind of offence. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 also provide the mechanism to stop the circulation of such video.
When these Rules were unveiled in February this year by the then Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, he had revealed that one letter to the then Chief Justice of India, wherein circulation of two such rape videos was reported, had led to formation of these new IT Rules. Still struggle to fully abolish this malpractice is still going on.
Case Title: Narendra Singh v. State of UP and Ors.
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