'Chastity to be seen from lens of dignity, privacy': Supreme Court upholds conviction of man threatening to leak woman's bathing video

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday held that the concept of “unchastity” under criminal law must be interpreted in line with modern constitutional values rather than outdated patriarchal notions of morality, in a significant judgment emphasising women’s dignity, privacy, and sexual autonomy.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh made the observation while upholding the conviction of a man under Part II of Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code.

The appellant, Vijayakumar had threatened to upload a private video of his former partner bathing naked on Facebook, which the court ruled amounted to imputing unchastity to a woman.

“The act of video-recording the victim in a naked state while she was taking a bath and the threat to upload it on digital social media can be construed to be an act amounting to a threat to impute unchastity within the meaning of Part II of Section 506 IPC,” the bench said.

The court noted that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy while disrobing in a bathroom, and any threat to publish such images would violate her privacy, dignity, and sexual autonomy.

“Such a video... would amount to transgressing her sexual autonomy, undermining her dignity, invading her cherished privacy, and insulting her sexual character,” the bench said.

The 78-page judgment stressed that “unchastity” can no longer be viewed through traditional patriarchal morality. Instead, it must be understood from the standpoint of a woman’s dignity and autonomy under Article 21 of the Constitution.

“Chastity is not to be considered purely from a moral perspective focused on virtue alone; it has to be seen from the prism of dignity and autonomy of the individual woman to decide her sexual preferences and habits,” the court said.

Even though the video did not depict a conventional sexual act, the act of secretly recording a woman naked and threatening to circulate it online was held to be a serious violation in the digital age, as it could be manipulated and used to harm her reputation and autonomy, the bench said.

The case arose out of a 2015 complaint at the All Women Police Station in Gingee, Tamil Nadu.

The woman alleged that she was in a two-year relationship with the accused, who secretly recorded her while she was bathing.

After their relationship soured, he allegedly threatened to upload the video on Facebook.

The trial court at Villupuram acquitted him of rape and other charges but convicted him under Section 506 Part II IPC for criminal intimidation.

The Madras High Court on February 28, 2024 upheld the conviction, prompting an appeal in the Supreme Court.

Referring to the Constitution bench judgment in Joseph Shine Vs Union of India (2019), which decriminalised adultery, the court said that traditional notions of chastity were rooted in patriarchal control over women’s sexuality. It called for interpreting “unchastity” in alignment with constitutional values of privacy, dignity, and sexual self-determination.

The court also held that non-recovery of the mobile phone containing the video was not fatal to the prosecution case, as credible oral testimony — including the woman’s statement and corroboration by her sisters — was sufficient to establish the offence.

While upholding the conviction, the court, however, reduced the three year sentence to the period already undergone by the appellant, noting the incident occurred in 2015. The man was out on bail during the proceedings.