Why did the Supreme Court overturn the Madras High Court’s decision on child pornography? Know the highlights of the decision

New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday gave a historic verdict on child pornography. The apex court rejected the Madras High Court’s decision and said that watching and downloading child pornography is a crime under the POCSO Act and the Information Technology Act. The court suggested that Parliament should consider amending the law and changing the term ‘child pornography’ to ‘sexual abuse and obscene material involving children’.

Guidelines on child pornography

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra overruled the Madras High Court’s decision that downloading and viewing child pornography is not a crime. On January 11, the Madras High Court quashed criminal proceedings against a man named S Harish (28) from Chennai. Harish was accused of downloading pornographic material related to children on his/her mobile phone. While hearing the case, the bench also issued some guidelines on child pornography and its legal consequences.

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Key points of the Supreme Court’s decision

• Viewing, distributing or displaying content relating to child pornography on the Internet by any person, with or without real or physical possession or storage of such content in any device or other manner, is an offence under the POCSO Act.
• The Madras High Court has made a serious mistake in delivering the verdict.
• “A person can be punished if it is proved that he/she had ‘stored’ or ‘possessed’ any child pornographic material before the initiation of the case or registration of FIR,” the bench said.
• The apex court said that we have already penalised storage and sharing of child pornographic content by those who aim to obtain pecuniary gain 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.
• Implementing comprehensive sex education programs that include information about the legal and moral consequences of child pornography can help deter potential offenders.
• Viewing sex education as a Western concept that is not in keeping with traditional Indian values ​​has hindered the implementation of sex education programmes in schools by various state governments.
• Educators, health care professionals, and law enforcement officials should be trained to recognize signs of problematic sexual behavior.

The apex court gave suggestions to the Parliament

The bench said, we have suggested to the Parliament to amend POCSO… so that the definition of child pornography can be changed to ‘sexual abuse of children and obscene material. We have suggested that an ordinance can be brought. The apex court gave its verdict on the petition in which the order of the Madras High Court was challenged. While giving the verdict, the apex court restored the criminal proceedings in the case saying that the High Court made a mistake in quashing it. The bench said that the Sessions Court will now have to hear the case afresh.

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Madras High Court had also expressed concern

The Supreme Court took note of the arguments of senior advocate HS Phoolka, who was representing the petitioner organizations, that the High Court’s decision is contrary to the law in this regard. 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 should educate them instead of punishing them.