Women not safe inside the house or outside: BMC officer jailed for sending unsolicited text messages to woman

A magistrate court in Mumbai recently sentenced a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officer to three months in prison and fined him ₹4,000 after holding that he outraged the modesty of a woman by sending her unsolicited, obscene text messages and images. [The State of Maharashtra v. Narsingh Bhujangrao Gude].Metropolitan Magistrate VJ Kore observed that the punishment to one accused could serve as a lesson to members of society who might commit similar offences."...now a days, offences against women are day by day increasing. Women are not safe inside the house as well as outside the house and punishment to one accused is a lesson to the society who is going to commit similar kind of offence," it said..The Magistrate further emphasized that no one has a right to disturb the privacy of a person, more so when the person does not know them."There is no friendship between informant and accused. Informant does not know the accused. Informant is married woman. The said messages are send at night between 11.30 p.m. to 12.30 a.m. No one has a right to send any messages disturbing the privacy of any person," she said..Counsel for the accused argued that pictures he sent were already published in a newspaper and therefore could not be called obscene.The court underlined that the photographs sent by the accused could be construed to be obscene given clothing practices in traditional Indian families."The photographs which is sent on the informant's number, in that photographs, the model is on less clothes. In India, in many families traditional clothing are practiced, therefore, for such type of families less clothing is obscene and moreover, said pictures / photographs were send when informant does not know the accused. On perusal of messages and photographs, it is seen that said messages and photographs are send with intention to insult the modesty of the informant," it said..The accused took the defence that the case was a false one and was filed by the informant after she had a quarrel with a hydraulic engineer of the BMC.However, since enmity between the informant and the accused was not established, the court found the defence unacceptable. It, therefore, held that the accused had committed an offence under Section 509 (insulting women's modesty) of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 (transmitting obscene material) of the Information Technology Act."There is no previous enmity between the accused and the informant, then what is the intention of the informant to lodge the false FIR is not argued by the Ld. Counsel for the accused. The defence of the accused is not probable and acceptable," the Magistrate concluded..The man was directed to pay the informant ₹3,000 for mental suffering and ₹1,000 as a fine..[Read Judgment]