SC to deliver verdict on Monday on plea against HC ruling that watching child porn not POCSO offence

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to deliver on Monday its judgment on a plea challenging a Madras High Court ruling that has said mere downloading and watching child pornography is not an offence under the POCSO Act and the information technology law.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is likely to pronounce the verdict.

Terming atrocious, the apex court had earlier agreed to hear the plea challenging the high court ruling that has said mere downloading and watching child pornography is not an offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Information Technology (IT) Act.

On January 11, the Madras High Court quashed the criminal proceedings against a 28-year-old man charged with downloading pornographic content involving children on his mobile phone.

The high court had also said that children these days are grappling with the serious issue of watching pornography and instead of punishing them, the society must be "mature enough" to educate them.

The Supreme Court had taken note of the submissions made in the matter by senior advocate H S Phoolka, who represented two petitioner organisations, that the high court verdict was contrary to the laws in this regard.

The senior lawyer appeared in the court on behalf of NGOs Just Rights for Children Alliance, based in Faridabad, and the New Delhi-based Bachpan Bachao Andolan. The organisations work for the welfare of children.

The high court had quashed the criminal case against S Harish under the POCSO Act, 2012 and IT Act, 2000.

In order to constitute an offence under section 67B of the IT Act, an accused must have published, transmitted or created material depicting children in a sexually-explicit act or conduct, it had said.

"A careful reading of this provision does not make watching child pornography, per se, an offence under section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000," the high court had added.

Even though the said section of the IT Act has been widely worded, it does not cover a case where a person has merely downloaded child pornography in an electronic gadget and watched the same, without doing anything more, it had said.

Admittedly, two videos involving boys were downloaded and were available on the petitioner's mobile phone, and those were neither published nor transmitted to others and were within the petitioner's private domain, it had said.

The Madras High Court had, however, expressed concern over children watching pornography.

Viewing pornography can have negative consequences on teenagers down the line, affecting both their psychological and physical well-being, it had said.

The high court had advised the petitioner to attend counselling if he was still afflicted with the addiction of watching pornography.