The Supreme Court has overturned a ruling by the Madras High Court, which stated that downloading and viewing child pornography is not an offense. In a decisive judgment on Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed that simply storing such material constitutes a crime under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Justice JB Pardiwala stated, “The High Court committed an error in its order; therefore, we are setting it aside and remitting the matter back to the sessions court,” as reported by Bar and Bench. In its verdict, the Supreme Court also urged Parliament to amend the POCSO Act to replace the term “child pornography” with “Child Sexual Exploitative and Abusive Material.”
In its ruling, the Supreme Court recommended that Parliament amend the POCSO Act to change the term “child pornography” to “Child Sexual Exploitative and Abusive Material.” The court noted that the Central Government could issue an ordinance until the legislative changes are enacted. Additionally, the Supreme Court instructed all courts to avoid using the term “child pornography” in their proceedings.
“We have suggested to the parliament to bring an amendment to POCSO…so that the definition of child pornography can be referred to as child sexually abusive and exploitative material. We have suggested an ordinance can be brought in. We have asked all courts not to refer to child pornography in any orders,” he said.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the plea challenging the high court ruling that said mere downloading and watching child pornography was not an offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Information Technology (IT) Act.
The high court had made the observation while quashing 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.
