Delhi HC slaps media houses with Rs 10lakh penalty for revealing Kathua victim’s identity

New Delhi, April 19: The unsparing outrage of the people over the recent Kathua Rape Case has triggered a lot of debate in the country. Nevertheless, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to several media houses for revealing the identity of the eight-year-old Kathua rape victim and were directed to pay Rs 10 lakh each to the Jammu and Kashmir Victim Compensation Fund.

 

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar directed that the compensation amount be deposited with the registrar general of the high court within a week and the money to be transferred to the Jammu and Kashmir legal service authority's account to be used for Jammu and Kashmir's victim compensation scheme.

Under Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code, anyone who reveals the identity of a victim of sexual violence and rape could be sent to a minimum two years imprisonment. The court said it would take up the issue of social media being used as a tool for revealing and disseminating the identity of victim of sexual violence at a later stage.

The bench also directed that wide and continuous publicity be given to the statutory provisions of law regarding privacy of victims of sexual offences and punishment for revealing their identities.

The court had earlier restricted the media houses from implementing any publication including the name, address, photograph, family details, school details, neighborhood or any other particulars which may have an effect of leading to the disclosure of the identity of the child victim.

The rape and murder of the eight-year-old has shaken the entire nation. The victim had gone missing from near her home in a village near Kathua in Jammu region on January 10. Her body was found a week later.