Indian law on cyber stalking:

Cyber Stalking:-
The word stalking was not commonly known until various instances happened. The legal
definition of stalking varies from country to country. Various definitions are available in several
books, out of which it can be stated that the common elements are[i];
Repeated and unwanted behaviours whereby one individual attempts to contact
another individual, and
The behaviour causes the victim to feel threatened or harassed.
Stalking has become a problem to women and children on a larger part in comparison to men.
Women are threatened, vandalized, assaulted when it comes to real world but the same things
happen when cyber stalking takes place. Obscenity also adds up with the, threatens and
harassment. No doubt men also become the prey of the same but its lower when it comes to
females. Children also undergo the same trauma by adult predators and pedophiles. The victim is
normally a person who is less thorough regarding internet services and its applications. The
stalker is generally a person who is a paranoid with no self-esteem. But the traits differ from one
stalker to another. Some harass to seek revenge or some do so for their own pleasure. While
some just to do it for playing a mischief.
Cyber stalking is potentially just as dangerous to the victim as a live stalker would be the front
door.[ii]
The core areas where the stalking takes place are;
1. live chat rooms/flaming[iii],
2. e-mail,
3. discussion forums and;
4. message boards.
Talking about chat rooms, here the stalker harasses by way electronically sabotaging the victim.
While in case on forums and message boards, the stalker does by posting obscene junk under the
name, contact number and address of the victim thereby threatening the victim. Similar is the
case when it comes to e-mail. Instead stalking on e-mails has increased at a greater pace. The
prowler sends bullying mails, obscene pictures, spamming etc.
The Indian Information technology Act 2008 (amended) does not directly address stalking. But
the problem is dealt more as an "intrusion on to the privacy of individual" than as regular cyber
offences which are discussed in the IT Act 2008. Hence the most used provision for regulating
cyber stalking in India is section 72 of the Indian information technology act ( Amended) , 2008
which runs as follows;
Section 72: Breach of confidentiality and privacy: Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any
other law for the time being in force, any person who, in pursuant of any of the powers conferred
under this Act, rules or regulations made there under, has secured access to any electronic
record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the
consent of the person concerned discloses such electronic record, book, register,
correspondence, information, document or other material to any other person shall be punished
with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine which may extend to
one lakh rupees, or with both.
And also section 72A of the Information Technology Act,2000(amended in 2008), which runs as
follows:
Section 72A:Punishment for Disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract (Inserted
vide ITAA-2008): Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in
force, any person including an intermediary who, while providing services under the terms of
lawful contract, has secured access to any material containing personal information about
another person, with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or
wrongful gain discloses, without the consent of the person concerned, or in breach of a lawful
contract, such material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term
which may extend to three years, or with a fine which may extend to five lakh rupees, or with
both.
In practice, these provisions can be read with section 441 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals
with offences related to Criminal trespass and runs as follows: Whoever enters into or upon
property in the possession of another with intent to commit an offence or to intimidate, insult or
annoy any person in possession of such property , or having lawfully entered into or upon such
property, unlawfully remains there with intent thereby to intimidate , insult or annoy any such
person, or with an intent to commit an offence, is said to commit criminal trespass.
If the cyber stalking is done only to annoy the victim and is not resulted to serious offences like
severe defamation, sexual crimes, identity theft or even grave crimes like terrorism, it is treated
as a bailable offence.

However, after the December, 2012 Delhi gang rape incidence, the Indian government had taken
several initiatives to review the existing criminal laws. A special committee under Justice Verma
was formed for this purpose and basing upon the report of the committee, several new laws were
introduced. In this course, anti-stalking law was also introduced. The Criminal Law Amendment
Ordinance,2013 added S.354D to the Indian Penal Code to define and punish the act of stalking.
This law is as follows:
S.354D of the IPC (as has been added by the The Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance,2013 ):
1. Whoever follows a person or contacts or attempts to contact such person to foster
personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such person or
whoever monitors the use by a person of the internet, email or any other form of
electronic communication or watches or spies a person in a manner that results in fear of
violence or serious alarm or distress, in the mind of such person or interferes with the
mental peace of such person, commits the offence of stalking.
Provided that the course of conduct will not amount to stalking if the person who pursued
it shows
i. that it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime and the
person accused of stalking had been entrusted with the responsibility of
prevention or detention of crime by the State , or
ii. that it was pursued under any enactment or rule of law, or to comply with any
condition or requirement imposed by any person under any enactment, or,
iii. that in the particular circumstances, the pursuit of the course of conduct was
reasonable.
2. Whoever commits the offence described in S.354D(1) shall be punished with
imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year but
shall extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.
As there is advancement in technology, crime has also increased due to it. Technology and
crime go hand in hand. Technology played an important role in the several bomb blasts which
occurred worldwide. One of the important medium was computers in all these killings.
Computers have been proved versatile. It helps from communication to spreading heinous
viruses all over. The later part and more to it is spreading a lot nowadays. Computer crimes or
say cyber crimes have increased a lot today. Various categories are explored under it, out of
which one of them is cyber stalking. Stalking happens every day in the real world but when it
comes to virtual world stalking has increased at a double rate because stalkers can easily target
victims being anonymous via internet. It is safe in comparison to stalking in real world.
Legal Regime:-
Discussing about the legal regime in India, then there were no provisions regarding cyber
stalking until 2008. The Information Technology Act, 2000 did not contain any provisions
regarding this heinous crime but the amended Act in 2008 made it possible by recognising cyber
stalking via Section 66A. Though on paper its a recognised crime, half of the society is still
unaware about it. In the following article an effort has been made to confer about cyber stalking
in relevance criminal law and the legislative provisions.
Starting with criminal law, there is no per se law regarding cyber stalking under Indian Penal
Code. Though, Section 503-507 applies for stalking. Some of the cyber stalking elements should
amount to criminal offences and should lead to prosecutable offence. At the same time other
international countries have ample of laws on cyber stalking. Talking about USA, their first
cyber stalking law went into effect in 1999 in California.[iv]Other countries have also started to
include this crime into their legislations. India has grown tremendously in the internet industry.
Though it has developed in context of technology but then the issues regarding have also
increased. The Information Technology Act, 2000 did not recognise the term but due to Ritu
Kohlis case the amended Act of 2008 recognised Cyber Stalking. In a case, in 2003, Seema
Khanna (name changed), an employee with an embassy in New Delhi, know that web surfing
would lead to an invasion of her privacy. In an apparent case of cyber stalking, Khanna (32)
received a series of e-mails from a man asking her to either pose in nude for him or pay Rs 1
lakh to him. In her complaint to Delhi Police, the woman said she started receiving these mails in
the third week of November. The accused threatened Khanna that he would put her morphed
pictures on display at sex websites, along with her telephone number and address. He also
allegedly threatened to put up these pictures in her neighbourhood in southwest Delhi. Initially,
she ignored the mails, but soon she started receiving letters through post, repeating the same
threat. She was forced to report the matter to the police, said an officer with cyber crime cell.
That, however, was not the end of her ordeal. The accused mailed the woman her photographs.
The woman claimed these were the same photographs which she had kept in her mail folder. The
police said the accused had hacked her e-mail password which enabled him to access the
pictures. A preliminary inquiry into the complaint has revealed that the mails were sent to the
victim from a cyber cafe in south Delhi. The police felt that the accused might be known to the
victim as he seemed to know a lot about her. The cyber stalker can be booked under Section 509
of the IPC for outraging the modesty of a woman and also under the Information Technology
Act, 2000. But the police admitted that IT Act, 2000 was not enough to deal with cyber
stalking.[v]
Ritu Kohlis case is the first case in India dealing with cyber stalking. The case in which issues
were raised as to what is cyber stalking? Why dont we have laws regarding it? Recently, the
Delhi Police arrested Manish Kathuria the culprit of the case. In the said case, Manish was
stalking a person called Ritu Kohli on the Net by illegally chatting on the website
www.mirc.com with the name of Ritu Kohli. Manish was regularly chatting under the identity of
Ritu Kohli on the said Website, using obscene and obnoxious language, was distributing her
residence telephone number and inviting chatter to chat with her on telephone.Consequently Ritu
Kohli was getting obscene calls from different chatters from various parts of India and abroad.
Ritu Kohli reported the matter to the police and the Delhi Police swung into action. The police
had registered the case under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code for outraging the modesty of
Ritu Kohli.[vi] But Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code only refers to word, gesture or act
intended to insult modest of a woman. But when same things are done on internet, then there is
no mention about it in the said section. None of the conditions mentioned in the section cover
cyber stalking. Ritu Kolhis case was an alarm to the Government, to make laws regarding the
aforesaid crime and regarding protection of victims under the same.
As a result Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2008 (ITAA 2008) states[vii],
Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc:
Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,-
(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or
b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance,
inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill
will, persistently makes by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,
(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or
inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such
messages (Inserted vide ITAA 2008) shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which
may extend to three years and with fine.
Explanation: For the purposes of this section, terms Electronic mail and Electronic Mail
Message means a message or information created or transmitted or received on a computer,
computer system, computer resource or communication device including attachments in text,
image, audio, video and any other electronic record, which may be transmitted with the
message.
Conclusion:-
Ritu Kohlis case is one the few cases that came in the lime light. There are thousands of cyber
stalking cases talking place in the nation, but only few cases are lodged as a complaint. Due to
threaten and fear of getting abused in the society half of the victims accept the incident as a
nightmare and try moving on. Cyber stalking is covered under various approaches such as
personal intervention, strategies, and legislative provisions to various flaws. In the 21
st
century
the technological exploitation ha increased in comparison to physical exploitation. With no
proper safeguards it is increasing everyday at a double rate. According to Working to Halt
Online Abuse[viii] an organization working since 1997 to fight against online harassment, in
the year 2011, 305 cases of cyber stalking took place.