CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
https://youtu.be/c4mtQsV9iUg

Judges, cops and civil servants: Can they have Social media friends in reality?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Image courtesy: Internet 

In the fag end of May, 2018, news channels flashed the story of Major Nitin Leetul Gogoi, the army man who is hero to some and villain to some because of his controversial act of tying a Kashmiri man to a jeep using him as a human shield against the stone –pelters who were targeting army actions in Kashmir last year. He became (in)famous to many because the clippings of his controversial act became viral on the web. He grabbed the headlines again this month because of his controversial Facebook friendship with a Kashmiri woman who, the media says was trying to check in   with the Major and another person in a local hotel in Kashmir. It was reported that the said woman had claimed that she knew the Major through Facebook and his account was not in his real name. We know that social media including Facebook is used for secret surveillance by the government agencies and it has positive and negative aspects as well. Fake accounts are used by the police to detect and trap criminals including paedophiles, fraudsters and even terrorists.

But here, I am not actually concerned about pattern of use of social media by the government officials. I am concerned about professional ethics of certain categories of government servants who may not be allowed to befriend common people like what social media offers. This category may include judges belonging to higher and lower judiciary, government officials belonging to certain all India services including group A and B of central services etc.

Let me explain it broadly here:

Since ancient times judges are considered to be of high moral and judiciary is considered to be “an institution of integrity”. Several judgements including K.P.Singh vs. High Court of H.P. &ors,[1] High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan vs. Ramesh Chand Paliwal,[2] Tarak Singh vs. Jyoti Basu,[3] etc had established the fact that judges are expected to be like hermit, they should be honest and should “adhere to a code of moral value”.[4] In short, they should be inapproachable personally but approachable as an institution to be impartial. What does this mean? Judges cannot be on par with general individuals who may approach the institution of justice, i.e., the courts for seeking justice. They should not make themselves individually or privately approachable so that the possible litigants, who may approach their  courts, may not influence him. It is the principle of fair justice which to a large extent governs the code of conduct of judges. But we need to remember that in this era of social media, any individual can hardly be out of the net . While it is still expected that judges should not make themselves privately approachable, I myself have loads of Facebook friends who are in the judiciary. They share opinions, their personal photos with their chosen friends just like any other individual. But yes, their circle of friends may not be as big as any other common social media user. Many of them are directly connected with the Facebook pages of District legal services authorities, which not only spread awareness about legal rights, but also showcase performances of the particular government offices.  However, I do not have Facebook friends from higher judiciary, but nonetheless, many of “Their Lordships” may be easily approachable because of  digital messaging services like WhatsApp, which may be used to create ‘groups’ as well.[5] World wide this has become a cause of concern now; it has been suggested by many that judges while in service, should try to avoid social media as this may pull them in unnecessary trouble and make floodgates open for questioning their integrity.[6] But again, we can neither ignore the strong (social media) presence of judges like Justice Markendey Katzu, former Supreme Court judge who had courted controversy because of his blog posts, social media posts for strong criticism of court decisions.[7] Doesn’t this show that he may still be considered as falling in the ‘restricted netizen’ category even as a retired judge? Probably yes because he may never be seen as a general individual who may criticise judges and their judicial understanding of cases by virtue of his being a judge himself who is expected to not to lower the respect the judiciary; probably no, because he may still use his right to speech and expression to express his displeasure for the judgements which according to him, are not fare. But still then, he could not be equal to general individuals: the court questioned his act towards publishing post in social media criticising court’s decision in crucial cases like the final verdict of the sensational case of Soumya, who was killed by her rapist.

       High level civil servants including bureaucrats, officers of Indian Police Services etc have a high presence in the social media too. Most of their accounts may be private accounts. But there are several pages of their offices which may be made by their respective offices. This actually shows that even though the government and the courts continue to question data policy of social media companies like Facebook or Twitter, these social media sites are very much involved in government outreach mechanisms: for example, see the websites of certain city police offices/headquarters; all may show their Facebook presence. http://ahmedabadcitypolice.org/, https://www.bcp.gov.in/ , http://www.tnpolice.gov.in/CCTNSNICSDC/Index?0 ; all may have their Facebook and twitter pages where individuals may access for information and even to reach out concerned police offices for immediate lodging of complaints. But private accounts of IAS or IPS officers are not connected with these pages. This means that they have a separate private presence in the social media. Their friends, their posts and their photographs are their private affairs just like any other general individual who may use social media sites for reaching out to friends. But still, they may not be out of surveillance for their conduct in their private social media accounts. Their children may also be held accountable for sharing parents’ pictures which may raise questions about their integrity: erstwhile J&K DIG Beig invited hoards of controversy when his son posted certain pictures of his dad which raised media storm because the posts suggested that Beig was abusing power.[8] Even though the son removed the posts, the pictures and hashtags were made viral and they are still available on internet.  It may actually mean that these officers may not have a private life even in social media. Gogoi in the same way, may also not have that privacy even if he may claim that he and the woman in question personally knew each other and this friendship was neither professional, nor was an abuse of power for harassing the girl offline or online.

In short, why such friendships between officers and civilians, their online presence and activities may raise questions at all? Misuse of power to harass and exploit civilians especially women could be one primary reason for such enthusiasm. But in case the friendships are genuine, posts by the officials reflect their personal and independent opinions and photographs shared in their social media sites are personal memoire , why they should be targeted and who makes these posts (in)famous for public and media? It is those ‘friends’ who may knowingly or unknowingly feed the enthusiastic ‘third persons’ by sharing /showing the private posts that may appear in their time line feeds. Remember Merin Joseph, the young IPS officer from Kerala who being a police officer herself, could not remain safe online? She had to encounter fake profiles with her picture, trolls and misogynist posts even though she was sharing some posts as a private person and not as an on duty officer. Trolls attacked her  posts and albums, some of which were not for public viewing. Privacy may be myth for these public servants  especially when they are active  in their private  social media accounts. Compared to 1990’s public servants have become more accountable now because of their web presence. After each UPSC result declarations, the social media accounts of successful candidates may immediately come into lime light. It works positively because their conduct becomes more transparent to public; it works negatively because they may slowly lose privacy being within the private social media account. The very much private persons suddenly come under lime light as not only the common people , but also the media starts data mining  to know them more than what is expected to be known. One name which comes in my mind right now is of Sandeep Nanduri, IAS, who is presently the District magistrate and collector of Tuticorin district. He had taken over as DM and collector Tutircorin at a very crucial time when the district was having agitation over Sterlite copper industries plant closure issue. Nanduri’s Facebook account may reveal his activities as a government official as well as a private individual. This may further mean that not only he himself, but his wife may also be targeted by trolls, stalkers and miscreants who may wish to approach him.

Untill now there is no clear-cut code of conduct framed for restricting judges and grade A and B officers of central government or even state government services from using social media (except  for certain issues like restriction from spreading hatred, criticising the government in certain key issues, leaking confidential data etc) and befriending  common people. They however may have to rely on the social media policies for data protection. But again, in such cases, they may be held responsible for choosing their virtual friends. We should not forget that there are instances  of honey trapping of government officials by ISI secret services; this may however show that privacy of the government officials may easily be breached if they themselves are not vigilant enough for their social media ‘friends’. There are clearly two arguments which may made in this regard: (i) such government servants may be completely barred from making themselves available to ‘public’ through their private social media  accounts , (ii) being part of  digital India movement they must be approachable to people through social media as well. However, considering the privacy and security aspects, I feel it is high time that government  makes a clear  policy as how they should be protected from predators and how they should conduct even when they are ‘privately public’.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2018), “Judges, cops and civil servants: Can they have Social media friends in reality?”3^rd June, 2018, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com

---

[1] LPA No. 163 of 2009

[2]  (1998) 2 SCC 72

[3] (2005)1 SCC 201

[4] See for more in http://hpsja.nic.in/ethics.pdf. Accessed on 26.05.2018

[5]  For example, see Maniar Gopi (2017),Vadodara: Gujarat HC slams VMC commissioner for sending WhatsApp message to judge. Published in India today on Semptember 8, 2017 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/vadodara-gujarat-hc-vmc-commissioner-whatsapp-message-judge-1040341-2017-09-08

[6] For better understanding, see Singh Shaziah (2016), FRIEND REQUEST DENIED: JUDICIAL ETHICS AND SOCIAL MEDIA, Published in Journal of Law, Technology & the Internet · Vol. 7 · 2016. Accessed from https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1099&context=jolti on 25.05.2018

[7] For more understanding, see Vaidyanathan.A (2017), Justice Markandey Katju Submits Apology In Supreme Court Over Post Criticising Soumya Verdict, published in https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/justice-markandey-katju-apologises-to-supreme-court-over-post-criticising-soumya-verdict-1645845 on 06-01-2017. Accssed on 25-05-2018

,.

[8] For example, see Bashaarat Masood (2014),J&K DIG’s son posts photos of ‘Dad & I’ enjoying perks of power, published in http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/jk-digs-son-posts-photos-of-dad-i-enjoying-perks-of-power/ on Octiober 29,2014. Accessed on 25.05.2018

Protect your image, not the image destroyer

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Very recently I came across the news of a victim of domestic violence who had been badly physically abused. All attempts to hide the bruises in her face were failed. She was in pain for several days before she could actually gather herself up to join the daily chores of life by her sheer will power. When some of us, her well wishers advised her to report the matter to the police immediately, she retreated. Her sole concern was to protect the family. The case seems similar to many of the domestic violence cases in India as well as in many parts of south Asia where the victim refuses to see the police in fear of losing the faith in her ‘dear ones’. The story is no different for on line abuses. Many women are constantly abused on-line by their own family members, especially doubtful husbands, or someone in whom they once had deep trust, like the ex boyfriends or the ex husbands.  In the digital space, it is extremely easy to spoil the image of the woman. Show her actual picture with dirty tag-line, morph her picture to affix her face on nude bodies, show the pictures of vagina and emboss her name on it, rape her virtually by affixing human hands on the picture of her body parts, especially breasts and lower abdomen and allure others to do the same....... these are some of the examples of abusing the image of a woman which had been discussed by many feminist researchers in their write ups including me in my paper titled “Examining the scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the light of cyber victimisation of women in India (See Halder Debarati, Examining the Scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the Light of CyberVictimization of Women in India (May 25, 2013). National Law School Journal,Vol. 11, 2013, pp. 188-218 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2270061). But no wonder, majority of the victims feel extremely embarrassed to visit the police. Why? The case of this particular victim of domestic abuse made me realise the truth again; the woman has to live in the society where her relatives including her father, brother or even husband or even her women folk are also staying. They may never like to be tagged as the relative of a victim of on-line abuse, especially when many still believe that on-line abuses such as these mostly occur due to the victim’s own (mis)deeds. Many victims retreat from reporting the crime in fear for loss of job and loss of reputation not for them, but for the family members including the husband in case he is the abuser himself. Some even fear for loss of reputation of the girls in the family in the marriage market. In some cases, the fear is not baseless especially when the police starts tracing the crime and haunts the offices or workplaces of the accused, who may be directly related to the victim or her family. Also, the police have almost set a trend to tag such crimes as either pornographic crimes, or obscene or sexually harassing crimes... all of which may  bring shame to the victim when she is asked about it in the typical questioning pattern set for physical crimes falling under the broad title of sexual crimes. Thanks to the confused laws, less interest of legal drafts men ,the police authorities and the criminal justice machinery in reviewing recent academic researches on the new developments of  international as well as national laws, the young and enthusiastic police  officers (who are rare in number) never get any chance to book the offences as per their own judgements and the crimes continue to add to the categories of traditionally laid down definitions, giving less chances to examine their  true characters. But unlike the physical cases of image destroying of the victim by hitting her and bruising her face, cutting her skin and flesh and permanently damaging her looks, where the accused could be arrested or the victim could be separated from the accused, in cases of on-line crimes of image destruction, the accused may remain hidden or may carry on further damages while the police carry on further investigation. This is extremely frustrating for the victim. Then comes the juggling of the jurisdiction in cases where the accused reside outside the jurisdiction of the local police. While the Criminal Procedure Code clearly empowers the police to carry on the investigation in such cases, red tapism never leaves. A married woman never wants to lose her time in such tangle especially when she has to look after her children, her job and her family. Resultant, either she herself leaves the battle ground with deep frustration which may even lead her to commit suicide, or may take up some illegal ways to remove the image quickly. The actual image destroyer enjoys his misdeeds with no repent.

But time has come when women, especially married women must take time to save their own physical images rather than saving the image destroyer. Let us hope that the courageous women may face the situation more bravely to save themselves.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Protect your image, not the image destroyer”, 3^rd September,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/