NCW Issues Notices To Amit Malviya, Swara Bhasker, Digvijaya Singh For Allegedly Revealing Hathras Victim's Identity
LIVELAW NEWS NETWORK
6 Oct 2020 11:23 AM GMT
The National Commission for Women (NCW) has issued notices to BJP IT Cell head Amit Malavya, Congress MP Digvijay Singh and actress Swara Bhaskar, seeking explanation on their Twitter posts, revealing the identity of the victim in the Hathras Gang Rape case, along with a direction to remove these posts immediately. On October 2, the BJP leader tweeted a 48-second video, suggesting that...
The National Commission for Women (NCW) has issued notices to BJP IT Cell head Amit Malavya, Congress MP Digvijay Singh and actress Swara Bhaskar, seeking explanation on their Twitter posts, revealing the identity of the victim in the Hathras Gang Rape case, along with a direction to remove these posts immediately.
On October 2, the BJP leader tweeted a 48-second video, suggesting that the Hathras victim was strangulated, and not raped. The video, allegedly an interaction between the victim and a reporter, clearly showed the victim's face.
It may be noted that disclosing the identity of a victim of rape/ sexual assault is prohibited under Section 228A IPC and is punishable with imprisonment up to two years and fine.
Emphasizing the same, the Commission said,
"the Supreme Court had held that the bar on disclosure under Section 228 A (2) of the IPC was not confined to just the name of the victim but actually meant that the "identity of the victim should not be discernible from any matter published in the media"".
The Commission also issued separate notices to Bhaskar and Singh, stating that it had "come across several Twitter posts wherein the picture of the victim of the alleged gang rape incident was used."
It further noted that these tweets are "widely circulated" by their followers.
Thus, the Commission has required all of them to provide a satisfactory explanation to the Commission and remove and refrain from transmission of such pictures/ videos on the social media.
