“Downloading, watching or publishing” pornography content related to children is crime... Supreme Court

SC On Child Pornography Content: The Supreme Court overruling the Madras High Court's decision, that watching and downloading child pornography (obscene material) is a crime under the POCSO Act and the IT Act. However the Supreme Court suggested that Parliament should consider amending the law to change the term 'child pornography' to 'sexual abuse of children and obscene material'.

Supreme Court overruled the Madras High Court's decision

Today SC delivered a historic verdict on child pornography, in the meanwhile apex court has given a big decision in the case of pornography content related to children. The Court said that viewing, publishing or downloading such content is a crime. While giving the verdict, the Supreme Court also cancelled the decision of the Madras High Court, in which it was not kept in the scope of crime.

Madras High Court had also expressed concern

Earlier, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear the petition filed against the Madras High Court's order, terming it wrong. The Madras High Court had said that watching and merely downloading child pornography is not a crime under the POCSO Act and the IT Act. The High Court had also said that nowadays children are facing a serious problem of watching pornography and society should be 'so mature' that it educates them instead of punishing them.

Organizations had approached SC against the decision of HC

On January 11, the Madras High Court quashed criminal proceedings against a man named S Harish (28) of Chennai. Harish was accused of downloading pornographic material related to children on his mobile phone. While hearing the case, the bench also issued some guidelines on child pornography and its legal consequences.

Key points of the Supreme Court's decision

The Madras High Court has made a serious mistake in giving the verdict

Viewing or displaying content related to child pornography on the Internet by a person, in any device or other manner, is an offense under the POCSO Act.

The apex court said that we have already punished the storage and sharing of child pornographic content for those who aim to obtain economic benefit or advantage.

The court said, we suggest that an amendment be brought to refer to such content as 'child sexual exploitation and abuse material'. We also request all courts not to refer to it as 'child pornography' in their orders.

Implementation of comprehensive sex education programmes incorporating information about the legal and moral consequences of child pornography may help.

Teachers, health care professionals and law enforcement officials should be trained to identify signs of problematic sexual behaviour.

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Parliament should seriously consider the law

Supreme Court said that Parliament should seriously consider bringing amendments in POCSO with the aim of replacing the term 'child pornography' with the term 'child sexual exploitation and abuse material' (CSEAM). So that the reality of such crimes can be reflected more accurately.