Salacious writing against a woman can cause more pain than physical harm: Karnataka High Court
Court refuses to quash case against man for writing a woman’s mobile number on the outer wall of a men’s public toilet
Any salacious statement made against a woman either by gesture, writing, or speaking would amount to insulting her modesty, and sometimes cause more pain than physical harm, the High Court of Karnataka has said.
Psychological harm
“Causing physical harm to a woman is an altogether different circumstance and punishable with different offences, but intruding into the victim’s privacy, personal integrity would cause serious psychological harm which sometimes generates more pain to a woman than causing physical harm, as it scars the soul,” the court observed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna made these observations while refusing to quash a charge sheet filed against a man for writing the mobile number of a woman on the walls of a men’s public toilet at Kempe Gowda bus station at Majestic area in Bengaluru and ‘’call girl” alongside it, following which the victim started getting innumerable calls from men.
In today’s digital age, the court said, “one need not cause physical harm and a woman’s modesty can be railroaded by sheer circulation of pejorative statements, pictures, or videos on the social media.”
“It needs no emphasis that sexual violence against a woman, apart from being a de-humanising act, is intrusion into the right to privacy, which can by no stretch of imagination be construed to be lawful. It leaves the woman to undergo traumatic experience, and therefore, such cases, which are brought before the court, need to be dealt sternly,” said Justice Nagaprasanna.
Case history
The victim, a junior health assistant at a public health centre in Chitradurga district, suddenly started getting a flood of calls from men during January-February 2020 and on verification with one of the callers she came to know that her mobile number was written on the outside wall of a public toilet.
Later she, along with one of her woman colleagues, came to Bengaluru and found her mobile number written on the toilet wall and later went back to her place and lodged a complaint with the police, suspecting that it was done by someone in her workplace.
The police, on investigation, found that the accused, one Allah Baksh P., 38, of Chitradurga had written her mobile number on the toilet wall, as one of her woman colleagues had told him to “teach her a lesson” owing to professional rivalry with the complainant.
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