are you engaging in Cyber Crime… to gather Evidence for Divorce ...!!!

19^th October 2014, I can never forget this date; a client approached me and told he is booked under cybercrime for seeking divorce as her wife was cheating upon him …! 

On discussion further in detail, I discovered he (husband) had accessed her (wifes) emails and whatsapp messages without her consent (it’s obvious, how will she give him consent to access her private data). He was already a victim of domestic violence; he comes from a middleclass family, retail merchant from Indore, married to a girl working for IT Company in Bangalore. He did suspect her wife’s relationship with her colleague who often travelled for short term IT consulting assignments together out of India…, he was able to successfully gather evidence out of their emails / whatsapp messages and some objectionable photographs in compromising position that made his case strong to seek divorce. Well unlike him there are many other people during the divorce proceedings often track their spouses email or personal chats, hack their mobiles / computers to gather evidence and produce it in the court of law to get rid of the wedlock.

An estimated 55,000 couples are waiting for divorce in India. Bangalore alone has more than 9000 cases pending in the family court with couples jostling to sort out matrimonial issues. Every year 500+ new cases are filed and is increasing year on year with as many as 60 – 70 cases come up for hearing every day, contested divorce cases that need evidence to be produced are more complex, at least 64% of the cases are contested on grounds of Adultery, Cruelty and Infidelity which needs to be proven, the liability is upon the person who has laid the allegations to prove his/her spouse guilty.

We live in an Internet-based urban social order, substantiation and proofs of disloyalty, perfidy, adultery, cheating or other such grounds for divorce are usually digital and stored on one’s laptop/desktop, smartphones or other handheld devices, and often the spouses try to find the evidence by ‘hacking‘ each other’s digital devices, email, whatsapp / chat accounts etc….

What actually happens is husband and wife often share their passwords with each other when life is hunky-dory and all is going good in their relationship, things go wrong and they forget to change the passwords or often don’t secure their devices, this makes it easy for the information to be accessed leaving them disreputable. Only after they realize that the confidential or private information is stolen the vengeance or guilt invokes an opportunity to knock the doors of a lawyer and file a cyber-crime suit out of vengeance.

While many times its evidence gathering that provokes the couple to indulge in the act of hacking private information Cyber-crime is not limited to hacking, there are cases of vengeance that are growing. I remember a few cases that my clients have brought up during the divorce proceedings where their husbands have hacked the Facebook and other social media accounts and posted disgraceful content on their wall and shared with their social circle with an intention to malign their social image purely blindsided by the divorce proceedings. Few of my clients acknowledge that they did engage in such activity only with an intention to ensure they get the child custody and becomes easy to prove their spouse cannot take care of the child assassinating his/he character.  

Few other cases that are on a raise now-a-days are when husband / wife creates a fake profile of their wife / husband and connects with their social circle as thou he/she posting and messaging, runs a parallel account without his/her knowledge and turns mischievous to an extent that harms the social image and again such acts are done with an intention of child custody or alimony etc…  

I strongly censure such activities of hacking, people who are unaware my wish to go thru the Information Technology act following the link http://meity.gov.in/content/information-technology-act, Section 65 to Section 74 describes offenses and penalties for the same. Offenses punishable with imprisonment of 3 years and above are cognizable. (Generally, cognizable offence means a police officer has the authority to make an arrest without a warrant and to start an investigation with or without the permission of a court. By contrast, in the case of a non-cognizable offence, a police officer does not have the authority to make an arrest without a warrant and an investigation cannot be initiated without a court order.)

The key takeaway form this blog is to ensure one does not invite further trouble in his/her divorce case by indulging into an activity of hacking to gather evidence, there are many ethical ways of gathering digital evidence thou, few of my clients have engaged the professional services of detective agencies for the same, there is a provision for the victim to seek the intervention from the court to intervene in evidence gathering. If nothing exists at all and one still needs to prove his / her innocence or guilt one can demand a lie detector test. In fact there are many more ways, but the eagerness to prove one right or wrong forces you to hack the information which may lead you into trouble …

You may wish to write into me at lawyersonia@gmail.com or call me at +91 984 594 4896 for guidance and understand various legal options before trying to be impulsive and try hack your spouses’ inbox.