JUDGMENT

1. The instant writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, 1950, read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as ―Cr.P.C.‖) seeking, in a nutshell, the blocking of certain sites exhibiting intimate images of the Petitioner herein, and for registration of a First Information Report (FIR) arising out of the complaint dated 03.08.2021 made by the Petitioner to Lajpat Nagar Police Station, New Delhi.

GENESIS OF THE MATTER

2. At the outset, this Court deems it appropriate to refer to the Petitioner as “Mrs. X” in consonance with the directions rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Nipun Saxena v. Union of India, (2019) 2 SCC 703 whereby it was observed that in a patriarchal society like India, survivors/victims of sexual violence of any nature are forced to undergo ostracization for no fault of their own. Therefore, to prevent hostile discrimination or harassment of the survivor/victim in the future, this Court believes it to be prudent to refer to the Petitioner herein as “Mrs. X”.

3. Having stated the above, the facts, in brief, leading to the instant petition are stated as under:

Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed W.P.(CRL) 1505/2021 Page 2 of 88 a) It is stated that the Petitioner is a married woman with a nine-

year-old son. In December 2019, she became acquainted with one Mr. Richesh Manav Singhal who approached her through social media and introduced himself as a British Chartered Accountant. It is stated that in February 2020, the Petitioner shared her personal contact number with Mr. Singhal, and over a period of time, the Petitioner became close to Mr. Singhal.

b) In July 2020, it is stated that as the Petitioner was living with her son at a rented accommodation in Gurugram on account of her job and financial constraints. Mr. Singhal took advantage of the absence of the Petitioner’s family members, came over to her place and forced himself upon her. He allegedly not only clicked explicit pictures of the Petitioner, but also transferred to himself from the mobile phone of the Petitioner explicit pictures that the Petitioner had taken of herself for the purpose of sharing them with her husband.

c) It is stated that Mr. Singhal involved the minor son of the Petitioner in various sexual acts as well. Consequently, the Petitioner lodged a complaint against Mr. Singhal at the Lajpat Nagar Police Station, and on the basis of the same, a Zero FIR was registered with the investigation thereafter being transferred to Gurugram. It is stated that on multiple occasions, Mr. Singhal threatened the Petitioner that he would leak her sexually explicit photographs on various pornographic websites and that he would kill her son if she did not pay huge amounts of money to him. Consequently, the Petitioner was extorted into Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed W.P.(CRL) 1505/2021 Page 3 of 88 paying lakhs of money to Mr. Singhal, along with handing him all her jewellery.

d) It is stated that as the funds of the Petitioner had depleted and she was unable to pay any more money to Mr. Singhal, he followed through on his threats and leaked the Petitioner’s explicit images on various pornographic websites without the consent or permission of the Petitioner. This led to the Petitioner addressing a complaint dated 03.08.2021 against Mr. Singhal to the SHO at Police Station Lajpat Nagar recording the new offences. The said complaint notes that Mr. Singhal had made a YouTube channel in the Petitioner’s name, and has been posting her explicit videos and photographs on a daily basis.

e) Despite the Petitioner having approached the Grievance Cells of Respondents No. 3 to 6, i.e. Google LLC, Microsoft India Pvt. Ltd. (later replaced by Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd. which is the entity managing its search engine, Bing), YouTube.com and Vimeo.com, as well as having placed multiple complaints on cybercrime.gov.in, the explicit images of the Petitioner were not taken down.

f) Ag