The Madras High Court on Tuesday issued a “general appeal” urging young people and their families to be “extremely cautious while entering into online relationships” or “facilitated by technology”.
Justices Anand Venkatesh and KK Ramakrishnan issued the appeal in English, Tamil and Hindi while dismissing the appeal of a man who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in a rape and sexual assault case.
The judges, heading the Madurai High Court bench, said they had issued the appeal or advisory in the interest of both those disproportionately targeted and the wider society, given the advent of technology. They urged them to be vigilant in the digital world
The bench said that a moment of misplaced trust should never become a lifelong agony. He expressed his regret that time constraints had prevented the appeal from being translated into all regional languages. “No matter how deep the affection, trust, or promise of confidentiality, intimate photos or videos should never be shared with anyone via electronic means.”
Once such material is out of an individual’s exclusive control, it is easy to misuse it, leading to irreversible consequences for the victim’s privacy, dignity and mental well-being, the court said. “Prevention is always better than the arduous process of seeking legal redress after such trust has been betrayed. Therefore, this court respectfully urges every girl and woman to be extremely careful in protecting their privacy and dignity in the digital world.”
The court rejected the convict’s appeal against his conviction, and sentenced him to “life imprisonment until natural death.”
The prosecution said that the accused communicated with the victim via Facebook, and the conversation gradually moved to WhatsApp, and he lured her with false promises of marriage and work. He took her to a secluded place, locked her in a car, and sexually assaulted her. He secretly filmed the encounters and used the recordings to blackmail her into repeatedly surrendering over a period of months.
The convict said that the relationship was consensual. The court held that consent obtained by deception was invalid. He stressed the distinction between “consensual romantic relationships” and “relationships resulting from deception.” The court tabulated the difference in the chart in its ruling for future cases.
The court rejected the appeal after noting that investigators recovered nearly 355 obscene videos and more than 1,000 photos from the convict’s laptop, implicating dozens of victims. She pointed to the psychological impact that digital evidence has on “judges, lawyers and investigating officers who must repeatedly view video material.”
The judges said courts could not expect legal professionals to remain unaffected simply because they held “professional” roles. They pointed to the plight of a woman investigating officer who examined 60 case files with explicit content.
The court called for mandatory psychological screening, counselling, staff rotation, and trauma awareness training throughout the justice system. “It is time for judicial and institutional leaders to confront this challenge frankly.”
The court called for institutional responses that protect those who hold the system through mandatory psychological screening, regular counseling, post-exposure decompression protocols, rotation of staff dedicated to graphic material, training in recognizing and responding to vicarious trauma, and securing facilities and procedures to minimize unnecessary exposure. “Such measures are not luxuries but are essential to the integrity and sustainability of a justice system that still relies on human judgment.”
