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The Supreme Court has given a historic decision on child pornography. The Supreme Court said that watching, downloading child pornography is a crime under POCSO and Information Technology Act. The Supreme Court cancelled the order of the Madras High Court which said that watching child pornography is a crime.
Supreme Court On Child Pornography Verdict: The Supreme Court has given a historic decision on child pornography. The Supreme Court said that watching, downloading child pornography are crimes under POCSO and Information Technology Act. The Supreme Court quashed the order of the Madras High Court which said that watching, downloading child pornography is not a crime. The Supreme Court issued guidelines on the issue of child pornography and its legal consequences.
Supreme Court on Child Pornography Verdict
In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court has made downloading or viewing child pornography a crime under POCSO. A bench of Chief Justice of India Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala struck down the Madras High Court’s judgement on child pornography, which held that downloading and viewing child pornographic videos was not a crime. However, the court said that to prove such videos to be a crime under Section 15(3) of the POCSO Act, it would have to be proved that the video was stored for any benefit. The court suggested to the Parliament to replace the term ‘child pornography’ with ‘child sexual abuse-abusive material’. The government has been urged to bring an ordinance for this amendment.
It is worth noting that on 13 September 2023, the Kerala High Court had ruled in a child pornography case that if a person is watching pornographic pictures or videos in private, then it is not a crime, but showing those videos to others is a crime. Giving this statement, the Madras High Court acquitted an accused. After this, an NGO challenged the decision and approached the Supreme Court.
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