CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the Government of India to evolve a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to deal with cyberattacks against women, including the uploading and sharing of intimate videos and images recorded without their consent on digital platforms and social media.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh granted two weeks to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to submit the SOP in the court and said appropriate orders on the matter would be passed after perusing the SOP.
The union government’s counsel, A Kumaraguru, informed the court that the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development are already working on finalising an SOP.
The direction was issued by the judge while hearing a petition filed by a woman advocate seeking a direction to the centre to take immediate action to remove from digital platforms her intimate videos and images shot and uploaded without her consent by her ex-partner.
Victim’s name removed from FIR: Public prosecutor
During the previous hearing, Justice Venkatesh had expressed anguish and shock over such acts of sexual offence perpetrated against vulnerable women in the country and wanted the union government to come up with a mechanism to prevent the problem as suggested by the Delhi High Court in a related case.
Senior counsel Abudu Kumar Rajaratnam, representing the woman advocate, submitted that the videos have resurfaced on six websites. Subsequently, the judge ordered removal of the contents from these websites.
State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah informed the court that the victim’s name was removed from the FIR and other case records as per an earlier direction of the court.Pointing out that the SC’s order in the Nipun Saxena Vs Union of India case provided for removing victims’ names in cases of rape and those filed under the Pocso Act, he requested the court to issue appropriate orders to extend such protection to victims in all types of sexual offences.
He suggested filing of FIR in sexual offence cases in a sealed cover in the judicial magistrate court so that the identity of the victims can be protected.