The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to clear its stand on child pornography following a PIL which was filed in the Apex Court in 2014, by an Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani, deploring about the free availability of child pornography, and seeking measures to curb the same.
The PIL further contented since there were no appropriate laws, people had easy access to over 20 crore porn videos or clippings freely available in the market, which were downloaded from the internet. The PIL also sought a ban on pornographic sites saying rise in crime against women was an offshoot of such sites,
After the PIL was filed, the court issued notices to Ministry of Broadcasting and Internet Service Providers Association of India(ISPAI). In their reply, the ISPAI maintained that they cannot block these sites without directions from the government of the Department of Telecom.
Section 293 of Indian Penal Code penalises the sale or transmission of obscene objects to young person. On first conviction they shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, and with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees.
Section 67 B of Information Technology Act provides for punishments for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form. A first offence of publishing, creating, exchanging, downloading or browsing any electronic depiction of children in “obscene or indecent or sexually explicit manner can attract five years in jail and a fine of Rs 10 lakh.