How to legally deal with Phone call harassment?

Sayani Banerjee | Symbiosis Law School | 1st August 2020

INTRODUCTION

The present generation is often targeted by unwanted and harassing phone calls where one person abuses, threatens or hurts the dignity of another. The fact becomes more serious because the person on the other side of the phone call is completely unknown. Such calls come under the purview of criminal offence in India; hence, they must be reported to the concerned authority as early as possible.

According to a report published by “Truecaller” in 2020, almost 8 out of 10 women in India receive harassment and inappropriate sexual phone calls at least once a week. The cities that mostly face these issues are Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi and Pune. Indian women have the tendency of sharing their contact numbers quite frequently in shopping malls, restaurants, stores, or while filling any forms. However, when it comes to taking actions against such calls, only 12% of women reported it to police and the rest have just blocked the number.[i] Blank calls also amount to harassment. Such calls are mostly anonymously made with the sole purpose of threatening or harassing a person.

According to police sources, after Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.) was struck down by Supreme Court in the year 2015, cases relating to phone call harassment increased immensely.[ii] In one of the cases, a college student repeatedly received obscene messages and phone calls from an unknown number. The police later found out that the number belonged to one of her classmate. As per survey, in most of the cases, the caller was someone known to the victim.[iii]

HOW TO IDENTIFY A HARRASSING PHONE CALL

All unwanted phone calls do not come within the meaning of “harassment”. The factors that are required for an unwanted phone call to become a harassing one are as follows[iv]:

EFFECTS OF HARASSMENT CALLS ON WOMEN

In 2019, Truecaller conducted a survey on 2150 women aged between 15-35 years from 14 different cities. According to the findings, nearly four out of every five women said that they felt irritation and anger due to these harassment calls. One out of every three women said that such calls affected them mentally and they felt frightened, worried or troubled. Further, the affected numbers keeps on increasing every year indicating that more women are getting affected due to such calls.[v]

REMEDIES IN INDIA

The first step that the victim must take against phone call harassment is to inform the police and lodge a complaint in the general diary. The gender of the caller, his voice tone, date and time of the phone call, the conversation details and the estimated age of the caller can be noted by the victim as evidence to help the police in identifying the offender. If the harassment on phone calls continues for a long span of time then the victim must file an FIR.

In India, the provisions under which the harasser can be charged are as follows:

Journalist Barkha Dutt was receiving threat calls for her reportage on JNU; hence she filed an FIR at South Delhi’s Greater Kailash Police Station. Soon, the harasser was identified and a case was registered under Section 354D and 509 of IPC.

WOMEN HELPLINE NUMBERS[vi]

181 (Abhayam Helpline) is solely intended for women. There are female counsellors who will answer the call and take down the details of the harasser. After which, the details will be forwarded by the helpline center to the police who will take further actions of tracing and filing a complaint against him.

1091 is another women’s helpline number throughout the country. Whenever a woman is facing harassment over phone calls, all she needs to do is dial this number after which the police will take necessary actions.

100 is a general number that can be availed by both male and female for reporting a harassing phone call.

POSITION IN OTHER COUNTRIES

The Federal Communications Act, specifically 47 U.S. Code § 223 and several state laws prohibit harassments over phone call and specifies the legal remedies and enforcement mechanisms.[vii]

In California, Penal Code 653m PC prohibits phone calls and messages that are obscene, repeated or threatening and made with an intention of harassing the recipient. Such offences are punishable with imprisonment up to 6 months and a fine up to $ 1000.[viii]

According to Texas Penal Code, the act of using the telephone to ring repeatedly or make anonymous calls with the intention of harassing, abusing and annoying is punishable with imprisonment up to 180 days and a fine up to $ 2000. If the caller has already been charged once harassment then he will be punished with increased imprisonment up to one year and fine up to $ 4000.[ix]

In Canada, Section 264 of Criminal Code provides that repeatedly communicating a person with the intention of harassing or threatening is punishable with an imprisonment of not less than ten years.[x]

CONCLUSION

Although there are laws against harassing phone calls but a person can also tackle these issues in other ways. Not disclosing personal number and other contact details to strangers, random shops and social media can help in lessening the chances of harassments. Another way that most of the Indian women and girls resort to is hanging the call, blocking the number and marking it as spam. However, all such methods are only temporary and it will not stop the harasser from repeating the offence on somebody else. Thus, it is highly recommended that such harasser must be reported at the earliest and strict legal actions should be taken against them to prevent it in future.

---

[i]Third Edition of “Understanding the impact of harassment calls and SMS for women in India.” [Available at: https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/8-out-of-10-women-in-india-have-faced-harassment-via-calls-sms-truecaller-120030501544_1.html]

[ii] Harassment of women over phone, The Hindu (Updated on January, 2017)

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Harassing Phone Calls, Information Technology Services. [Available at: https://its.fsu.edu/harassing-phone-calls]

[v] “Stalker alert: 1 in 3 women who use mobiles in India face harassment, receive inappropriate calls”, The Economic Times [Last Updated: March 25, 2019]

[vi] https://indianhelpline.com/WOMEN-HELPLINE/

[vii] How to deal with Telephone Harassment (Legally). [Available at: https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/personal-injury/types-of-personal-injury-claims/options-telephone harassment.html]

[viii] Penal Code 653m PC.

[ix] Texas Penal Code § 42.07.

[x] Criminal Harassment, The Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. [Available at https://www.crcvc.ca/docs/crimharass.pdf]