A letter petition through Advocate-on-Record Anand Varma, and Advocates Kaustubh Prakash and Shubhangi Jain has urged the Supreme Court to take up the matter of ‘Bois Locker Room’ on the judicial side.
The letter stated ,
That while social media platforms have bridged the gap of communication, such incidents prove that “it has become a platform of public harassment of women in particular.”
“Anonymity of the accounts has become an easy medium to threaten whoever you want to and indulge in cyber bullying. It is also an easy platform to be conspicuous and share objectionable, obscene and private pictures, chats and other messages.”
The group “Bois Locker Room” a group on Instagram allegedly run by teenage boys from reputed Delhi schools, where objectionable pictures of women (including underage/minor girls) were being shared, followed by lurid discussions on their bodies. The group also allegedly shared nude/morphed pictures of girls and threatened to leak them online.
The letter petitioner urged that the Court to intervene on the judicial side. “We request that this horrific incident be taken up by the Supreme Court on the judicial side to address the multifarious issues arising therefrom. This incident raises the issue of not only privacy, safety and well-being of women, but also of sensitisation and counselling of juveniles who are engaging in such conduct” and have also urged the Supreme Court to intervene as there “might be jurisdictional challenges in pursuing the inquiry and investigation into this offence due to the nature of the offence being such.”
The letter petition stated that the offences under Sections 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Sections 506, 507, 509, 465 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code are being committed.
The women who had leaked the screenshots started receiving rape threats from its members.
“The leak has raised pertinent issues regarding the safety and privacy of women, especially minor girls, on video and photo sharing platforms. It is appalling how boys as young as 15 yeas of age glorify rape, discuss techniques of raping and gang-raping women and objectifying them in the most horrendous manner.”
The plea was moved in the personal capacity of lawyers.
