Mumbai: Bombay high court has quashed and set aside a 2015 FIR and terminated all further proceedings against a senior executive who was booked for voyeurism for allegedly staring at a female colleague’s chest.“The allegation is only that he stared at her chest during office meetings. Unwanted staring, even if accepted as true, is not the same thing as voyeurism within the meaning of Section 354C. The statute cannot be stretched beyond its plain words,” said Justice Amit Borkar on Wednesday.IPC Section 354C punishes any man who watches or captures the image of a woman engaging in a private act in circumstances where she would usually expect not to be observed.The April 7, 2015, FIR was lodged by Borivali police. The applicant (then 39) was assistant vice president of a private insurance company. The complainant (then 24) was a deputy sales manager. During work he used to insult her, avoid normal eye contact and instead “stared” at her chest and made inappropriate comments. When she observed him staring at her chest during a Nov 2014 office meeting, she told her superior who informed higher-ups. Subsequently he began finding fault with her work. The company issued notice to her. It threatened to terminate her service. This led to her complaint. The applicant was arrested on April 9, 2015, and released on bail.The applicant’s advocate Amol Patankar said, prima facie, the FIR does not attract Section 354C. Justice Borkar said 354C is not a “general provision covering every form of offensive gaze or bad behaviour towards a woman.” It applies “where a man watches or captures a woman engaging in a private act, in circumstances where she would usually not expect to be seen by the perpetrator…” “The foundation of the offence is therefore intrusion into privacy in a private setting, or recording and circulation of such a private act,” Justice Borkar explained.Prosecutor Yogesh Nakhwa and the woman’s advocate Ajinkya Udane relied on witnesses’ statements to say such conduct constitutes an offence affecting the modesty of a woman and therefore attracts 354C. “But a close reading of the section shows that the law does not punish every act which offends modesty under Section 354C,” said Justice Borkar.Patankar said his client was exonerated by the internal complaints committee under Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act. Justice Borkar said even if the clean chit report is kept aside, “the criminal case would still fail for want of basic ingredients of Section 354C.” “Criminal law is not meant to be used to convert every workplace grievance into an offence of voyeurism,” he added. He said alleged staring at the chest, insulting behaviour and workplace harassment “may at the highest amount to misconduct, indecency, or some other wrong…But they do not fit into the narrow mould of Section 354C.“The complainant may have genuinely felt offended and humiliated, and the workplace atmosphere may have become unpleasant, “yet criminal prosecution under Section 354C cannot survive only on the basis of such allegation.” Continuation of criminal proceedings would amount to “abuse of the process of law,” the judge said.
