Govt. assures SC on all possible measures to Block Porn Sites

The Union government on Wednesday told positively the Supreme Court of India that all possible measures would be taken to block porn sites, particularly those dealing with child pornography. The assurance has come after a bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu expressed its unhappiness that things have not moved forward and the petitioner in the matter was making all kinds of submissions. The bench also comprised Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy.

"You have not blocked the websites. The petitioner is saying so much," the bench told Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand. The bench, also asked Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who was appearing in another court, to assist it in the matter and advise the concerned departments of the government.

The petitioner had urged that although watching obscene videos is not an offence, pornographic sites should be banned as they were one of the major causes for crimes against women. It was submitted that the Centre had failed to devise mechanism to block such sites and absence of internet laws encouraged people to watch porn videos and as it was not an offence. There was allegation in the petition that over 20 crore porn videos or clippings were freely available in the market, which are directly being downloaded through internet or other video CDs. "The sexual content that kids are accessing today is far more graphic, violent, brutal, deviant and destructive and has put entire society in danger, so also safety threats to public order in India.

"The petitioner most respectfully submits that most of the offences committed against women/girls/children are fuelled by pornography. The worrying issue is the severity and gravity of the images are increasing. It is a matter of serious concern that pre-pubescent children are being raped," it had said. Additionally, it said, "At best, the IPC only recognises the offences of obscenity, kidnapping, abduction and other related offences which are not sufficient to tackle the issue of pornography, and such videos.”

The petition also suggested that watching and sharing obscene videos should be made non-bailable and cognisable offence.

It is noteworthy that the counsel for petitioner had made certain remarks against the Secretaries of some concerned Ministries over the issue which was objected to by the bench and junior advocates appearing for the Centre before Anand had joined the proceedings.

"All these are uncalled for," the bench told advocate Vijay Panjwani, who was appearing for Indore-based lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani.

The counsel had made reference about the posting of some photographs of a woman on websites circulated by her estranged husband. He said the matter has been pendingfor quite some time but the concerned ministries were not filing responses and counter affidavits. The government counsels said it was not the Information and Broadcasting Ministry but for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to look into the issue.The bench said no interim order can be passed in the matter which has to be examined after going through the counter-affidavit of the government department.

Interestingly, the Supreme court had earlier asked the Secretary, DoT to file an affidavit on whether the government was competent to issue direction to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block porn sites particularly those showing child pornography.

On the other hand, the service providers had a different version claiming that they on their own cannot block such sites and they can do so only on the direction of the government.