Can courts risk exposing rape victims to “insecure” private web-cam applications such as Skype and record their testimonies online? This is the question the Supreme Court will consider on October 5, at a time when the country is grappling with Internet privacy concerns.
The law permits rape victims to testify in-camera to protect their privacy and avoid any possibility of intimidation or stigma.
The case in question deals with an Irish national who was raped in Kolkata in 2013.
The prosecution informed the trial court that it was difficult to get her to return from her country to depose. Subsequently, the court allowed her to give evidence via videoconference over her Skype personal account on January 6.
The case was brought to the Supreme Court by the rape accused, Sujoy Mitra, who cried foul over how the court can use against him the victim’s testimony given over an “insecure, free and personal software application [Skype]”.
Arguing that using such a deposition in evidence was against the basic principles of justice, Sujoy alleged there were several flaws — the video being blurry and the victim sitting in her private room and not looking up even when she was asked to do so.
“Video conferencing infrastructure generally provides for high-definition cameras [which can pan, tilt and zoom] and which refreshes at 50-60 frames per second for good sound and image quality with multi-way screen. It is dispensed with by the trial court and evidence is recorded through web-cams over Skype which is insecure and blurred,” he said in his petition. “Detailed guidelines having binding force of a law need to be laid down by the Supreme Court in this regard.”
