CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday pulled up the Greater Chennai Police for not taking necessary action by invoking the appropriate penal provisions of the law in the FIR registered on a complaint of uploading of a woman’s non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) and videos on pornographic websites by her estranged friend.
“The petitioner’s father had approached the police and lodged a complaint. The police have promptly registered an FIR (on May 31). Prima facie, this court is of the view that the appropriate penal provisions, which are attracted for activities like this, have not been referred to by the police,” observed Justice V Lakshminarayanan.
The judge noted in addition, there is also another disturbing factor that the accused seems to have been arrested and was remanded to judicial custody on June 2. He had moved a bail application but it was dismissed on June 4 by the judicial magistrate court in Thiruvottriyur. Again, he moved another bail application on the same day and bail was granted on the very next day but the copy of the order was neither uploaded nor produced before the respondent police.
The judge ordered the respondent police and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to ensure that all the NCII videos of the petitioner, are removed from the 41 websites, apart from ensuring take down of the videos even if replicated and mirrored on any other websites.
The order was passed on a petition filed by the victim seeking directions to the concerned authorities to remove the NCII videos which were recorded by her estranged friend after luring her into intimacy.
The judge directed the registry of the high court to get a report from the judicial magistrate on why the bail order copy was not uploaded and how successive bail applications were entertained on the same day.
The judge sought a report from the police explaining why appropriate penal sections were not invoked in the case.
He adjourned the hearing to Thursday-October 1.
