Sending vulgar messages, pix amounts to outraging modesty: HC

Sending vulgar messages and posting objectionable photographs of young girls on internet tantamount to outraging modesty of woman, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has observed while denying anticipatory bail to an accused.
It said such incidents have been "tremendously increasing day-by-day, ruining the social fabric of our society" and need "to be curbed with heavy hands".
The observation was made by Justice Mehinder Singh Sullar while hearing an anticipatory bail plea of Adarsh Singh who was booked by Amritsar police along with another co-accused on charges of outraging the modesty of a woman and other offences under the IPC and the Information Technology Act, 2000 on April 24 last year.

Rejecting the anticipatory bail plea of the accused, the Judge observed "the learned state counsel has also produced on record the copies of vulgar messages, notes, abuses and objectionable photographs. The abuses and messages etc which were sent by the accused to the complainant, are so vulgar, that it is very difficult to describe them in black and white and the same have been kept in a sealed cover".
There is prima facie sufficient evidence on record to support the allegations assigned to the accused, he noted.
The prosecution had claimed that the marriage of complainant was scheduled to be solemnised on November 28 last year.

"The petitioner has sent very vulgar messages to her and her other relatives for the purpose of extortion. He has blackmailed her by projecting and displaying her objectionable photographs on internet. The complainant did not delete and saved the messages in her mobile phone as a matter of proof," the Judge noted.

The investigating officer obtained the details of messages and photographs of the complainant displayed on the internet and obtained arrest warrants against the petitioner.
"Perhaps, it cannot possibly be denied that, the tendency and frequency of sending such vulgar messages and projecting the objectionable photographs on internet of innocent young girls by such accused, have been tremendously increasing day-by-day, ruining the social fabric of our society, which needs to be curbed with heavy hands," the Judge said.

The order came in December.