'May Compromise Privacy': Chhattisgarh HC Upholds Trial Court Order Denying Defence Access To Social Media Accounts Of Alleged Rape Victim

The Chhattisgarh High Court has recently upheld a trial Court order which rejected the prayer of the accused/defense seeking access to the social media accounts, i.e. Facebook and Instagram profiles of an alleged rape victim on the ground of possible breach of her privacy.Justice Arvind Kumar Verma discarded such request of the defense, which was made to verify authenticity of the allegations made by the prosecutrix against the accused/petitioner. The Single Bench observed –“…in the opinion of this Court, the learned trial Court has rightly rejected the prayer to access and view the Facebook or Instagram account of the prosecutrix in the trial Court. If permission is granted to examine the Facebook or Instagram account of the prosecutrix as also to play the audio record concerning the prosecutrix, then privacy of the victim may be compromised.”Case BackgroundThe victim/prosecutrix was working as a Zila Panchayat Member and the petitioner was a Food Inspector. As per prosecution, they met in connection with their work, and gradually developed intimacy. About 18-19 months later, the prosecutrix came to know that the petitioner was already married and had two children. When the prosecutrix confronted the petitioner about concealing this fact, an argument ensued which led to the severance of their relationship. As per the prosecution version, the petitioner later contacted her using his friend's phone number and threatened to make her obscene videos public. Subsequently, on their meeting, the petitioner allegedly forced her to sit in his vehicle and took her to a Lodge. She managed to delete 4-5 obscene videos from the petitioner's phone. She further complained that the petitioner forcibly took her to a lodge, where he blackmailed and physically assaulted her by tying her hands and legs, coercing her, and restraining her until the next day. Later on, he along with certain other persons took the victim in a vehicle, physically assaulted and took away her belongings. She, therefore, lodged an FIR subsequent to which investigation was carried out and charge-sheet was submitted against the petitioner under Sections 294, 323, 506, 376, and 376(2)(n) of the IPC. During the trial, at the stage of cross-examination of the victim, the petitioner sought the permission to open the prosecutrix's Facebook and Instagram accounts, in the presence of the Special Public Prosecutor and the defense counsel, in order to verify the authenticity of certain photographs which the prosecutrix had denied being associated with, alleging they were edited and sourced from her social media profiles.The defense also requested permission to play an audio recording allegedly involving the victim in order to confirm the authenticity of the voice in the recording and to question the prosecutrix regarding its contents. However, such prayer was rejected by the Special Judge (Atrocities), Raipur. Hence, he assailed the order in this petition under Section 528 of the BNSS.Court's ObservationsThe Court examined the issue in the prism of 'right to privacy' guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, jurisprudentially concretised by the authoritative judgment of the 9-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Justice (Retd.) KS Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017). Justice Verma further said that the right to privacy is a human right, enshrined in numerous international covenants and institutions as reflected in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (UDHR) and Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 (ICCPR). “Privacy is a right enjoyed by every human being by virtue of their existence. It can extend to other aspects such as bodily integrity, personal autonomy, protection from state surveillance, dignity, confidentiality, etc.,” he added.Respect for privacy, the judge said, is regarded as a fundamental right in many international treaties. It is essential for maintaining human dignity and is one of the fundamental components of a democracy.“Privacy as a concept is not new. The divisions in ancient Greece were called Polis and Oikos, or the public or political world and the private or familial sphere, respectively. The “Right to Privacy”, on the other hand, is a relatively contemporary concept. The Right to Privacy is one of these rights since the right to life in Article 21 of the Constitution is flexibly defined to cover all parts of a person's existence that make their life more meaningful.”Taking a cue from the instant set of facts, the Court opined that it is high-time to have a robust data protection regime. “The Right to Freedom should be carefully examined by the Parliament and the Supreme Court, and a means for balancing the conflicting rights to privacy and freedom of expression should be developed. In the digital age, data is a valuable resource that shouldn't be unregulated,” it observed.In the present case, the bench noted, the prosecutrix outrightly denied the fact that she was...

'May Compromise Privacy': Chhattisgarh HC Upholds Trial Court Order Denying Defence Access To Social Media Accounts Of Alleged Rape Victim

Jyoti Prakash Dutta

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