The Problem with Defining Voyeurism Too Narrowly

By Ms. Aastha Tiwari is an Assistant Professor of Law at Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai, and serves as the Faculty In-Charge of the Centre for Information Communication Technology and Law (CICTL).

India stands on an uncharted terrain of privacy jurisprudence, where, on one hand, a normative framework of privacy has taken shape, yet, on the other, the law continues to grapple with contemporary offences, often reducing crimes such as voyeurism to little more than words on paper. Recently, the Bombay High Court in Abhijit Baswant Nigudkar v The State of Maharashtra (2026) held that “staring at the chest” does not amount to voyeurism. This decision raises seminal legal and social questions.

The Court in this case held that the alleged conduct did not meet the ‘statutory requirements’ under Section 354C of Indian Penal Code (Now Section 77 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita). Section 354C criminalises watching or capturing the image of a woman engaged in a “private act”, where she would reasonably expect not to be observed. The law further clarifies that such private acts include exposure of intimate parts, use of a lavatory, or a sexual act not done in public. Dissemination of such images without the consent of the victim is also within the ambit of voyeurism. In the present case, the Court noted that the complaint merely alleged that the accused stared at the complainant’s chest during office meetings. There was no claim that she was engaged in a “private act” in a space where she expected not to be seen, and hence, the ‘basic ingredients’ of voyeurism were not made out.

Section 354C was introduced through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case, at a moment when Parliament sought to confront not merely isolated acts of sexual violence but also the subtler patterns of intrusion that, if left unaddressed, would become social norms. The problem lies in the way “private act” is defined. It assumes that a woman’s privacy is tied to specific locations or activities – bathrooms, bedrooms, or explicitly sexual acts. In reality, it’s far more nuanced and complex. A woman being persistently stared at in a sexual manner in a workplace may not be engaged in a “private act” as defined by the statute, but the harm she experiences is real. Is it not a breach of her “intimate privacy“? Intimate privacy does not always involve explicit sexual activity, but also includes any situation where a person expects their body and presence not to be subjected to unwanted sexual scrutiny. It is the right to be seen without being seen as an object. The awareness of being reduced to object, of being denied intimate privacy, is a pure shame. In an official setting, when a man in a position of power persistently stares at a woman’s chest, objectifying her, he not only violates but disregards her expectation of privacy. This expectation can exist even in public or semi-public spaces. For instance, a mother breastfeeding in a park, a person sunbathing on the beach, or an employee attending a meeting, may all have a reasonable expectation that they will not be watched in a sexual manner. At the same time, not every instance of inappropriate behaviour is voyeurism. It is also about a behavioural pattern rooted in objectification and sexual control. As per the Merriam Webster dictionary, the practice of obtaining sexual gratification or watching someone surreptitiously is an essential ingredient of voyeurism.

Currently, the law is a strict liability provision. As per the current law, an inadvertent observation of a person bathing may be treated as voyeurism, while a deliberate act of capturing images of a woman in front of her house setting, such as her living room, may fall outside its scope. Expanding the scope of “private act” to include ‘non-consensual breaches of intimate privacy’ coupled with the presence of mens rea in such offences would allow the law to better address such harms. If the Indian judiciary continues to strictly interpret such laws, India’s progressive shift towards transformative constitutionalism will reverse, reducing what is a source of constitutional pride to a mere theoretical concept. If we are serious about addressing such crimes and ensuring dignity for all, it is time to rethink how we define voyeurism and privacy.