The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Delhi Police to initiate immediate action to remove the photographs of a law student which were posted on a pornographic website without her consent.
It also transferred the complaint made by the woman to the Cyber Prevention Awareness and Detection (CyPAD) unit of Delhi Police.
The court was hearing a plea filed by a law student from Bangalore complaining that the pictures that she posted on the social media platforms ‘Instagram’ and ‘Facebook’, had mischievously and illegally, been lifted and placed on a pornographic website, along with derogatory captions.
In this regard, she had also made an online complaint to the DCP South West, Delhi on July 11, but to no avail.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, in order, to prevent the disclosure of the identity of the woman, directed its registry not to make available a copy of the physical/ electronic records of the case, for inspection to anyone other than the parties, without permission of the court.
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Learned Counsel of the petitioner, submitted in the High Court that the petitioner verily believed that respondent No. 5 is a spurious website, which carries pornographic content and which ought to have been banned and taken-down from the world-wide-web by the competent authorities.
He added that the respondent No. 5 had unauthorizedly, illegally and in utter violation of the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2002, and the Indian Penal Code, 1860, placed his client’s photographs on that website, which is causing her deep distress, anguish, and embarrassment.
Further, it was submitted that by reason of the inaction on the part of the authorities, these photographs had already received 15,000 views.
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Standing counsel for the Delhi government, on the other hand assured the court that urgent and immediate steps will be taken to take-down the petitioner’s photographs from the errant website and necessary investigation will be carried out to trace and punish the offenders.
The Court further directed that a status report under the signatures of DCP, CyPAD, Delhi Police to be filed in the court before the next date of hearing i.e. July 30.
The order has been passed by Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani on 17-07-2020.
