Not Willful: Delhi High Court Absolves Lawyers, Husband Of Contempt For Filing Intimate Photos In Divorce Petition

The High Court called the act of placing on record such photographs of the petitioner wife a grave lapse.

The High Court was considering a petition filed by the petitioner seeking initiation of contempt proceedings for breach of the judgment/order dated June 11, 2015, whereby directions were issued to the Family Courts in Delhi, the parties and the lawyers, to be followed in the pending cases.

The Single Bench of Justice Sachin Datta held, “Since the respondents have sought to purge the lapse both by tendering an unconditional apology and by undertaking remedial measures, this Court is not inclined to take any action against the respondents under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.”

“This Court also notices that the petitioner, in her rejoinder, has placed on record certain photographs and videos of respondent no. 1 to portray his conduct and character in an unfavourable light. While the gravity of the two sets of material is not comparable, the larger principle applies viz. matrimonial litigations must not be allowed to degenerate into contests of mutual humiliations through weaponisation of private images and intimate material”, it added.

Advocate Rubinder Ghuman represented the Petitioner while Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The respondent is the estranged husband of the petitioner. The second and third respondents are the advocates who, at the material time, had represented the respondent husband in the said proceedings. The marriage between the petitioner and the first respondent was solemnised in 2022, but the relationship soured soon thereafter. The petitioner, alleging cruelty and harassment at the hands of the respondent husband and his family members, instituted a complaint under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (DV Act). The petitioners alleged that the respondents, while filing pleadings in the matrimonial matter, annexed certain photographs of the petitioner of the most intimate kind and placed them on the record of the Family Court.

This was alleged to be violative of the directions contained in the aforementioned judgment where it was ordered that where a party in a case seeks to rely upon a document (writing, private letters, notings, photographs, and documents in electronic form including video clips, text messages, chat details, emails, printed copies thereof, CCTV footage etc.) which is of a sensitive nature, then such party and/or the lawyer of such party will first apply to the Court seeking leave to produce such document in a sealed cover. It was further directed therein that till such time a leave is granted, the contents of the said document would not be extracted.

Reasoning

At the outset, the Bench noticed that the directions rendered in the judgment/order of which willful disobedience was alleged were not issued in proceedings involving the present parties, and they contained general directions. The Bench also noticed that the judgment contained general directions, and it was stated by the respondents that the said directions were not to their knowledge. “There is no material for this Court to hold that the respondents wilfully flouted the said directions, despite being aware of them”, it added.

The Bench was of the view that though the filing of the offending photographs was a significant lapse on the part of the respondents, when being confronted with the same, the respondents did not seek to justify it. The Bench further noticed that the respondents had filed an application before the Family Court seeking that the offending documents/photographs be placed in a sealed cover.

Thus, absolving the respondents from ‘contempt’, the Bench expressed its strong disapproval of the act complained of. The Bench thus ordered, “Considering the circumstances, this Court, while accepting the unconditional apology tendered by the respondents, grants liberty to the petitioner to move appropriate application before the Family Court seeking masking and anonymization of her identity and protection of the offending material.”

The Bench also asked the Family Court to to consider and pass appropriate order/s to secure confidentiality of the proceedings.

Cause Title: A v. B (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:5224)

Appearance

Appellant: Advocates Rubinder Ghuman, Anu Mehta, Rajat Tyagi, Adya Nanda

Respondent: Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur, Jatan Singh, Advocates Aditya Sharda, Siddharth Singh, Vanishka Adhana, Jashank Srivastav, Kartikeya Basoya

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