In a petition filed before the Delhi High Court seeking initiation of contempt proceedings for breach of a judgment dated 11-06-2015 by this Court wherein directions were issued to the Family Courts in Delhi as well as the parties and lawyers of pending family matters regarding presentation, preservation, and provision of documents containing the most private and personal details of the parties, a Single Judge Bench of Justice Sachin Datta ordered the family court to remove the wife’s photographs from open record and to place them in a sealed cover while disposing of the petition.
The grievance of the petitioner (wife) was that the respondents (the husband and his advocates), while filing pleadings in a matrimonial matter, annexed certain photographs of the wife which were very intimate and placed them on record of the Family Court, in violation of the directions issued in the aforesaid judgment. In 2022, the couple got married and in 2023, the wife alleged cruelty as well as harassment by the husband and his family members before instituting a complaint under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (DV Act).
In August 2023, the husband instituted a petition before the Family Court, seeking dissolution of marriage. In the said petition, the husband’s advocates filed photographs depicting the wife’s private anatomy which formed part of a WhatsApp communication between the husband and the wife’s doctor. These photos were placed on record without redaction and without protection of a sealed cover. Upon perusing the petition, the wife moved an application under Sections 18 and 23 of the DV Act, praying for directions restraining the respondents from circulating the objectionable material, violating the wife’s right to privacy. However, the said application was dismissed on the ground that the petitioner had failed to demonstrate as to how the act of annexing the offending documents fell within the sweep of Section 18 of the DV Act. Hence, the present petition was filed.
The Court noted that the directions rendered in the judgment dated 11-06-2015 were not issued in proceedings involving the present parties and that the directions were general in nature. Noting that the respondents contended that they did not have knowledge of the said directions, the Court found no material to hold that the respondents wilfully flouted the said directions.
The Court was in agreement that filing of the offending photographs was a significant lapse on part of the respondents, however, the respondents did not justify their actions and tendered an unconditional apology. It was also found that the respondents had filed an application before the Family Court seeking the offending photographs to be placed in a sealed cover. Hence, the Court was not inclined to take any action against the respondents under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.
Further, the Court expressed its strong disapproval regarding filing of intimate photographs as annexures to a divorce petition and stated that such an action was a grave lapse. It was stated that the husband’s advocates were responsible for this lapse and the Court cautioned them to exercise greater circumspection in the future. The Court said that the zeal to advance a client’s cause in a matrimonial litigation can never justify the sacrifice of the opposite party’s dignity.
It was noted that the wife, in her rejoinder, had placed on record certain photos and videos of the husband to portray his character in an unfavourable light. The Court said that while both materials could not be compared, matrimonial litigations must not be allowed to degenerate into contests of mutual humiliations through weaponizing private images and intimate material. Hence, the Court accepted the respondents’ apology but granted the wife liberty to move appropriate application before the Family Court seeking masking and anonymization of her identity as well as protection of the offending material.
The Court requested the family court to consider and pass an appropriate order to secure confidentiality of the proceedings. The Court asked the family court to remove the said photographs with every copy on record and place them in a sealed cover, to substitute her name in the cause title, and restrict access to electronic records containing the said material. Further, the Court restrained the respondents from publishing or circulating the said photographs. The Registry was directed to reflect the petitioner by her initials in the present judgment and mask any of her particulars. Thus, the petition was disposed of.
ALSO READ: Questioning Wife’s Fidelity, Isolating Her in Matrimonial Home Amount to Mental Cruelty: Madras HC