Penal Code, 1860 (XLV of 1860), Section 509 - Reading of the messages alleged to have been sent by the Husband-petitioner  to the wife it appears that the petitioner has called the wife a prostitute -  To call a woman, even if she is one’s own wife a prostitute and to call her that she earns money by indulging in prostitution amounts to insulting the modesty of a woman - WhatsApp.  2020 PLRIJ e@journal 52

Penal Code, 1860 (XLV of 1860), Section 294 - Sending the personal messages on WhatsApp will not amount to utterance of obscene words in public place -  Therefore, Section 294 of the I.P.C. cannot be invoked - Literature published on the Website of WhatsApp clearly indicates that the WhatsApp messages sent by one person to another are end-to-end encrypted which means, only the sender of the message and the recipient of the message can read the messages - The literature makes it abundantly clearly that such types of messages are strictly personal messages and nobody even the WhatsApp can have access to these messages which means nobody except the sender and the recipient can read the messages - When these messages cannot be read by others, it ipso-facto goes to show that no third person nor even WhatsApp can have access to those messages - Therefore, WhatsApp cannot be a public place if messages are exchanged on personal accounts of two persons - If these messages had been posted on WhatsApp Group, in that case the same could have been called as public place because all the members of the group, will have access to those messages – WhatsApp. 2020 PLRIJ e@journal 52

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