“The investigating agency, which is duty-bound to preserve, protect and champion the fundamental right of privacy of the victim, appears to have encroached upon it themselves. The factual background shows brazen disregard for the rule of law, privacy and dignity of a victim of sexual assault,” a division bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Gaurang Kanth said.
The court told the OCs of Lake and Narendrapur police stations to give a written apology to a sexual abuse survivor and asked each of them to pay her a notional compensation of Rs 5,000 from their own pockets for making post-midnight WhatsApp calls and turning up at her home at 2am. Terming these actions “excesses”, the judges said the officers had violated the survivor’s fundamental right to privacy.
Any interaction of policemen with a sexual assault survivor should be marked by empathy. In this case, it seemed more like harassment. The callous attitude of the cops has been rightly called out by the court. Hopefully, the lesson will be learnt.
The division bench, which took up the matter suo motu, said it was passing the order to “uphold the rights of privacy and dignity” of the survivor.
“No police officer, unless persuaded by extremely compelling circumstances relating to protection of life and safety of the victim, shall take recourse to measures like midnight calls/visits, which would impact the privacy, dignity and respect of the victim in her social surroundings,” the bench observed.
In this case, the Narendrapur police tried to call the survivor over WhatsApp at night and then went to her home at 2am to inform her about the date of her deposition before a judicial magistrate. The high court observed that the survivor appeared to have been “unnecessarily harassed in the guise of investigation”.