What Are Your Legal Rights If You Are Being Blackmailed By Your Partner?

Blackmail is a serious conduct and may tend to be more disturbing when it is exercise in the context of close relationships. There are many provisions in India aim at the prohibition of this form of coercion guaranteeing protection and legal redress to people who are being blackmail in the course of their relationship. In the event that you find yourself in such a position, it becomes important for you to know your rights in the law.

Blackmail in Relationships: About

• Blackmail is the act of coercing someone into taking an action which they are not willing to engage in by threatening to expose sensitive information, tarnish their character, or harm them physically. 
• This could involve economic coercion, threatening violence, or even engaging in the disclosure of private information such as images or messages within a romantic context. 
• Blackmail also interferes with the victim’s healthy relationships and causes emotional and psychological distress by taking away the equilibrium in such abusive relationships. 
• Blackmail is actually punishable in a number of laws in India, and citizens can avail themselves useful protective and restorative measures. Below are the available legal means of dealing with the crime of blackmail and what the victims can do about it.

Laws Pertaining to Blackmail

Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita

• Criminal intimidation is define under Section 351(1) as a threat to any person or their reputation, property, or the property or reputation of a person associate with them with the objective of compelling any act or omitting an action. For example, if your partner resorts to the tactics of causing harm or threatening your reputation by spreading baseless allegations or exposing your secrets, then you can consider him/ her as a partner with a vile intention who threatens you illegally, persistently causing intimidation as an example of the Section. 
• As stated in Section 308 (1) of the BNS, extortion refers to the wrongful threat of physical violence to a person, in order to purport ‘such intimidation’ to obtain any security or property. Your partner, also, may be liable for extortion as provided for in Section 308 (2) if the partner having made a threat, a demand for money, property or other valuables, makes the same threat.
• Threatening to release obscenely explicit imagery or video recordings for purposes of extortion would extend the reach of Section 296. This section makes it unlawful to sell, disseminate, or show pornography. There will be no use in enacting the law for any pornographic material at which the lion did not consent to its exhibition.
• Your mate may be liable for an offense under BNS Section 77 if she threatens to circulate image or video materials taken without your consent. Bans creeping in shadow and capturing pictures or video cassettes of someone indulging in sexual intercourse for the public is also provided in the Law.
• Section 78 of the BNS prohibits excessive screenshotted or photographic surveillance, a frequent tendency in practicing blackmailing. It does not matter if it is stalking other people physically or through the internet, any kind of activity is consider illegal.

Information Technology Act

• Section 66E: This provision provides for punishment of a person who makes, displays or distributes the image of the private body parts of another person without the consent of the said person. This section provides for remedy as to prevent the husband from circulating or threatening to circulate pictures or videos of the wife without her consent.
• Section 67:  Section 67 may be invoke in a scenario where the threats are make online (through social networks, electronic mails, etc.). It prohibits the showing or distribution of sexually explicit materials including but not limited to disturbing images and videos.
• Section 67A: This provision shall apply whenever the husband threatens to either leak or circulate any materials that contain lewd acts. The provision is more severe than section 67 due to the nature of the materials in question.

Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act

It offers a structure for dealing with verbal and emotional abuse, among other types of domestic violence. A partner’s threats, coercion, and blackmail may qualify as “verbal and emotional abuse” under the Act, granting victims the ability to apply for protection orders, financial assistance, and other legal aid.

Legal Rights if Blackmailed by Your Partner

• Section 84 of the BNS: This section may be use if the blackmail is a component of a wider pattern of cruelty or abuse by a husband or in-laws. It makes physical, emotional, & mental abuse by a husband or his family members illegal.
• Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act: Even if the blackmail takes place outside of the workplace, this Act may offer redress if the victim is a partner who also works for the same company.

Preventive Measures

• Oppose To Disclose Private Contents: However, confiding someone is, even hesitating a bit for sharing any type of close- up pictures and videos, or any form of intimate materials is advisable. Disclosing private contents can be of danger and for the umpteenth time, a close relationship is not so constant.
• Employ Social Networking Censoring Options: Target content and personal information to specific audiences by adjusting the appropriate features in your social networking profiles. 
• Keep a Record of Risks: Document any abusive or harassing behaviour demonstrated by your partner. It’s possible to see this kind of behaviour as a passive aggressive habit but over time, it may create a predicative circumstance where there’s coercion for favours.
• Consult a Lawyer: For knowledgeable counsel on your case, speak with a lawyer who focuses on criminal law, cyber law, or domestic abuse. They can help you with the complaint and restraining order application processes.

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