NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that downloading and watching "child sexual exploitative and abusive" pornography material is an offence under POCSO act and overturned a Madras high court judgment.
The top court was hearing a plea against a Madras high court ruling that stated watching child porn was not a POCSO offence. A bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra pronounced the verdict.
As Justice Pardiwala said he was beholden to CJI for giving him opportunity to write the judgment, CJI Chandrachud said it is a landmark judgment and the first instance in world where law on child sexual exploitative and abuse material is dealt in such detail by judiciary.
Observing that the Madras high court committed an "egregious error" in quashing the
criminal proceedings
, the Supreme Court set it aside and restored the criminal prosecution.
The judgment authored by Justice Pardiwala contains various guidelines regarding the enforcement of the POCSO Act.
The Madras high court had said mere possession of child sexual exploitative material and watching it is not an offence if there was no transmission or dissemination. However, SC took the opposite view and said not reporting to the authorities after receiving such material from any source is an offence.
Earlie on January 11, the Madras high court had quashed a criminal case against a 28-year old man charged for downloading and watching on his mobile phone
child pornography
. The high court had then granted relief on grounds that to constitute an offence under Section 67-B of IT Act, 2000, the accused must have published, transmitted, created material depicting children in a sexually explicit act or conduct.
"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.
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