New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has held that a threat to upload on social media a video recording of a woman taken without her knowledge while she was bathing constitutes criminal intimidation by imputing unchastity within the meaning of Part II of Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code, and that the absence of recovery of the mobile phone or the video recording is not fatal to the prosecution’s case where testimonial evidence is credible and unimpeached.
The judgment was delivered by a Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh.
The appellant had been in a romantic and physical relationship with the prosecutrix for approximately two years beginning in 2013. The prosecutrix alleged that on one occasion the appellant had left his mobile phone in the bathroom with the camera switched on, thereby surreptitiously recording her while she bathed. She further alleged that when she subsequently began to receive marriage proposals from other quarters, the appellant threatened her that if she insisted on continuing to contact him or pursuing the relationship, he would upload the bath video on Facebook. The prosecutrix shared these developments with her sisters and eventually lodged a complaint before the All Women Police Station, Gingee on 10 August 2015.
The appellant faced charges under Sections 376, 493, 354C, and Part II of Section 506 of the IPC. The Sessions Judge, Magalir Neethi Mandram (Fast Track Mahila Court), Villupuram, acquitted the appellant of the charges under Sections 376, 493, and 354C IPC, holding that the sexual relationship between the parties was consensual and that the prosecution had not established that the consent was obtained solely on a false promise of marriage.
However, the Trial Court convicted the appellant under Part II of Section 506 IPC, relying on the testimony of the prosecutrix corroborated by her sisters, and sentenced him to three years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 3,000.
The Madras High Court upheld this conviction by its judgment dated 28 February 2024. The appellant thereafter approached the Supreme Court.
Before the Supreme Court, the appellant argued that since he stood acquitted of the charges under Sections 376, 493, and 354C IPC, the conviction under Part II of Section 506 IPC could not stand in isolation, as all the alleged incidents were interrelated. The Court rejected this contention, affirming that each charge must be examined separately and independently.
The Court held that facts involved in a series of transactions, though related, may independently exist to provide the foundational ingredients for a distinct offence, and that acquittal in respect of some charges would not invariably lead to acquittal in others.
The most significant aspect of the judgment was the Court’s comprehensive restatement of what constitutes ‘unchastity’ for the purposes of Part II of Section 506 IPC. The Court declined to confine the concept to its traditional moral understanding, which linked a woman’s chastity exclusively to her sexual conduct and fidelity, and instead anchored it firmly in the constitutional values of dignity, privacy, and sexual autonomy.
The Court drew upon the nine-judge Constitution Bench decision in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, and the Constitution Bench ruling in Joseph Shine v. Union of India, to hold that ‘chastity’ must be understood as a person’s control over their own sexual choices and the ability to freely decide one’s own sexual relationships without interference from another.
The Court articulated this evolved understanding as:
“Chastity, thus, has to be determined not only by societal values but also based on her individual sensitivities as regards her sexuality. Chastity of a woman should be understood as a person’s control over their own sexual choices, in light of freedom of self-determination. It is the ability to determine one’s own sexual choices and one’s own sexual relationships without interference from another. It would encompass the ability to freely decide who to establish a sexual relationship with on their own terms without any undue pressure or interference.”
The Court further held that in the age of the internet, the dignity of a person is intrinsically tied to their reputation as perceived online, and that any private content circulated online with intent to negatively impact a person’s reputation causes harm both to reputation and to the person by directly violating their privacy, which is a recognised and protected right.
The Court reasoned that a woman has a reasonable expectation of privacy when disrobing in a bathroom, and any publication of images depicting nakedness taken in that context would violate her privacy, dignity, and chastity. A naked image, the Court observed, even if not overtly sexual, can be warped and altered in the digital environment to create sexual connotations entirely beyond the victim’s control. Any such reprehensible act that seeks to tarnish the dignity of a woman relating to her sexual autonomy and identity, the Court held, can be said to be an assault on her chastity amounting to imputing unchastity.
On the question of non-recovery of the mobile phone and the video recording, the Court held that recovery of an article of crime is not a sine qua non for conviction, and that the prosecution case will not fail if credible evidence otherwise proves the existence of the object of crime. The Court also noted that the prosecutrix had genuinely believed the video to exist, a belief formed on the basis of the intimate relationship between the parties and the appellant’s own disclosure, and that the appellant had subsequently used this belief to threaten and intimidate her. The Court held that so long as the prosecutrix held a bona fide belief in the existence of the video and the threat was made with the intention of causing alarm or compelling her to desist from contacting the appellant, the ingredients of Section 503 IPC were made out.
The Court also applied Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, holding that what transpired in an intimate relationship falls within the ‘especial knowledge’ of the parties to that relationship. Since only the appellant and the prosecutrix could speak to what occurred in their private moments, the burden shifted upon the appellant to explain or deny the allegations. The appellant, however, responded to every incriminating circumstance put to him under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure with a bare denial of ‘false evidence’, declined to examine any defence witness, and offered no alternative version of events. The Court held this studied silence significantly detrimental to the appellant’s case.
Addressing the standard of proof, the Court reiterated:
“Reasonable doubt which criminal law contemplates is not an imaginary, trivial, or merely possible doubt, but a fair doubt based upon reason and common sense. It must be actual and substantial, and not a mere apprehension devoid of suppositional speculation.”
While upholding the conviction, the Court modified the sentence of three years’ rigorous imprisonment to the period of custody already undergone by the appellant, having regard to the peculiar facts of the case and the passage of time since the incident in 2015.
The Court also took note of the investigating officer’s failure to recover the mobile phone despite the offence involving digital evidence, observing that this lapse was ‘disappointing to say the least’, and directed that the matter be brought to the notice of the competent authorities to prevent similar failures in future investigations involving digital evidence.
Case Title: Vijayakumar v. State of Tamil Nadu, Represented by the Inspector of Police (2026 INSC 525)
