On Monday, November 3, the Supreme Court indicated it was not interested in hearing a petition that demanded a total ban on pornography. It said, “Look what happened in Nepal when it banned it.”
The remark was in relation to the violent demonstrations that erupted in Nepal earlier this year following restrictions, and the young people, predominantly Gen-Z, were in the streets protesting against what they described as a corrupt government.
Supreme Court Declines Porn Ban Plea
This issue was discussed by a division court led by the current Chief Justice BR Gavai, who is scheduled to retire on November 23. The bench, declining to be immediately further prosecuted, did not say that they would recommence the hearing of a petition after four weeks, in the report.
The petitioner requested the court to instruct the central government to draft a policy in the country and develop an action plan to ensure that access to pornographic material is restricted, especially by minors.
The plea was also aimed at limiting the watching of such content in open places.
All people are digitally connected after the digitalisation, it does not matter who is an educated or an uneducated person. It is all in a single click, and petitioner said, as the Covid period had everyone on digital gadgets to do their schoolwork, there were no efficient systems in place to prevent or censor such material.
Chief Justice BR Gavai Postpones Hearing on Porn Ban
The petitioner cited the government admissions that there are billions of pornographic sites available in India. The plea also claimed that the exposure to such material has an overall negative effect on both individuals and society; to the fact that there is no effective law that governs this issue.
The petition also contained what it termed as shocking statistics that indicated that over 20 crore pornographic clips including child sexual content, are being spread in India.
The report indicated that the court was reminded of the powers of the government under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to block access to such content.
The court, however, noted that already, people and families may rely on the available parental control technologies, or tracking software, to control and restrain children on the internet. Although the bench recognized the severity of the matter, it did not make any provisional order and postponed the hearing.
