Veena Malik has alleged that her "nude" pic is not real and is a morphed image that has been deviously created without her consent by some notorious person and has been published on numerous websites across the Internet.
I have been speaking on cyber morphing at various forums and have written about it in my recent book titled "The Fundamental Right to Internet".
It is unfortunate that our law of Information Technology (The I.T. Act, 2000) does not specifically deal with morphing which in my view should have been made one of the most serious crimes inviting exemplary punishment. Morphing is equivalent to stripping a person naked in public. Since the Internet is a global network with millions of users, morphing a person's image by creating a nude pic, is equivalent to stripping a person nude before the globe. This should be one of the most serious offences in the law.
Presently, taking the law as it is, morphing a nude image of a person, would be covered under section 67 of the I.T. Act, 2000 which punishes cyber pornography with imprisonment extending to 3 years with fine. In my view, morphing a nude image should be a distinct offence. Cyber pornography usually covers obscene material that is created, published or transmitted with the consent of the porn stars. On the other hand, morphing a nude image is the worst form of defamation that one can imagine. Hence, it is shameful to equate morphing a nude image with cyber pornography.
Morphing a nude image should be treated as serious as the offence of rape, in our law. The crime of rape invites imprisonment extending to 10 years and in some cases to life.
Morphing a nude pic of a person would be covered presently in our law, under section 500 IPC (defamation), section 509 IPC (outraging the modesty of a woman) and section 67 of the I.T. Act, 2000. The punishment for defamation is extends to 2 years imprisonment while it is 1 year for the offence of outraging the modesty of a woman. It would be adding insult to injury, by punishing the person convicted of morphing, with only an imprisonment of 1 or 2 years. Our law makers have not understood the magnitude and seriousness of the offence of morphing nude pics of a person which can be said to be a social death of the victim. Moreover, it is extremely difficult for the victim to prove to the world at large that the image is morphed and not real. Since morphing has become very common and it is easy to morph a person's image coupled with the global audience that the Internet provides, morphing should be one of the most serious offences inviting punishment extending to life imprisonment.
Section 66E of the I.T. Act, 2000 imposes punishment of imprisonment extending to 3 years with fine, upon a person who intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent. This provision deals with capturing, publishing or transmitting the real private area of a person (naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast). I fail to understand as to why morphing has not been made part of Section 66E of the I.T. Act, 2000.
I can only hope that the frequent cases of morphing will wake up our lawmakers.
Before I pen off, I must add a proviso: I have assumed that Veena Malik's nude pic is a morphed image and not her real image, and has been published without her consent.
