Revenge Pornography: Legal Framework in India

Non- consensual sharing of images and videos is on rise in India and had been stimulated by the growth of social media and the cloak of anonymity it offers. A sub-type of privacy violation and cyber harassment: non-consensual sexually explicit pictures, videos and any similar kind of data uploaded, by someone, are known as “Revenge Pornography”. It covers images shared on and offline without the subject’s permission with the intent to cause harm. Physical distribution of images will also be covered. It is a terrible abuse of trust, which can leave the victims feeling humiliated and degraded. With the enhanced potentiality of the Internet coupled with the practice of sharing intimate pictures between lovers has given rise to crimes like “Revenge Porn”. Revenge porn has grabbed the attention of law enforcement agencies and has been in limelight from past few years. As the reports shows the figures of how far revenge pornography has grown along with the gravity of the consequences on the victim and its family. Keeping all into considerations his research paper emphasizes on the existing legal framework available in India as well as globally, felicitating remedy to the victims, and various challenges that comes in the way of the victim to seek justice. Insufficient laws, lack of awareness and trainings, lack of combatting skills to name a few. This study also seeks to have regard with the psychology of the perpetrators, thereby extracting a possible result to combat revenge pornography.