A youth has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court for clandestinely filming a sexual act with his girlfriend, saying that “perpetrators of such a crime deserve to be dealt with very sternly”.
Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat, while convicting and sentencing Delhi resident Rohit, said, “It is very necessary to respect and maintain the privacy of a person in all circumstances”.
“No person has any right at all to photograph or videograph the private area of any other person or even the sexual act between the two which may be consensual, even if the two persons are closely related to each other or are in an intimate relationship with each other, without the consent of that other person,” the judge said in his 33-page order.
The court refused to take a lenient approach in sentencing the convict, saying “perpetrators of such a crime deserve to be dealt with very sternly for the reason that these obscene photographs and sex videos are sold discretely and market for these is growing day by day”.
“The life of the prosecutrix (girl) would have become a hell if the video of her sex act or her obscene photographs would have gone public via Internet and through other means. So, I am of the opinion that it can by no means be said that the crime committed by the convict is not a serious one,” the judge said.
The court convicted Rohit under various provisions of the Information Technology Act and the IPC, including 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
It also slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on him which will be paid to the girl as a compensation.
The court, however, absolved Rohit from rape charges, saying the “evidence on record clearly demonstrates that the sexual intercourse between the prosecutrix and the accused was consensual”.
According to the prosecution, the girl had lodged an FIR at Bindapur Police Station on August 12, 2013, alleging that Rohit, whom she called as her friend, had taken her obscene photographs and had prepared a MMS.
The girl had alleged that she was raped at his flat and the act was filmed by him with the help of a cell phone hidden in a card board box kept in the room.
During the trial, Rohit claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and that the video was made by the girl herself on her mobile phone.