Staring at a woman colleague’s chest in an office setting may be morally wrong or amount to indecent behaviour, but it does not constitute the offence of voyeurism under Section 354C of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Bombay High Court has said, as reported by Bar and Bench and Live Law.
Section 354C of the IPC defines voyeurism as watching or capturing the image of a woman engaged in a private act in circumstances where she expects privacy, or sharing such images without consent. The law prescribes imprisonment and fines for such offences. The court clarified that merely staring in an office environment does not fall within this definition.
The case before the court involved a complaint alleging that during meetings, the accused avoided eye contact, stared at the complainant’s body, and made inappropriate remarks. The company’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) had earlier cleared the accused.
Hearing the matter, Justice Amit Borkar observed that while such conduct may be inappropriate, it does not meet the legal threshold for voyeurism under Section 354C. The court was dealing with a criminal application filed by a man booked in 2015 by Mumbai Police under the voyeurism provision.
In its order dated April 8, the court quashed the FIR and subsequent criminal proceedings against the accused, a senior executive at a private insurance firm. It held that the law cannot be stretched beyond its plain wording and continuing the case would amount to an abuse of the legal process.
“The allegation is only that he stared at her chest during office meetings. Unwanted staring, even if accepted as true, is not the same as voyeurism within the meaning of Section 354C. The statute cannot be stretched beyond its plain words,” the court observed.
In a separate development last month, the Delhi High Court quashed a voyeurism and stalking case against an ice cream vendor after both parties reached a settlement. The court noted that continuing the case would serve no purpose, especially as the complainant had moved on with her life and had no objection to the FIR being quashed.