POCSO Downloading and watching child sexual abuse material is an offence under POCSO, rules Supreme Court
New Delhi/IBNS: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled downloading and watching child sexual abuse material is an offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), media reports said.
The top court ruled hearing a plea challenging the Madras High Court order which stated watching only 'child porn' is not an offence under POCSO and IT Acts.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala said the Madras High Court committed "egregious error" in passing the judgement.
The court said as quoted by Live Law, "What is simpliciter required to constitute an offence under Section 15 of the POCSO is the establishment of 'storage' or 'possession' of any child pornographic material with the specified intention under sub-section(s) (1), (2) or (3), at any relevant point of time. Even, if the said 'storage' or 'possession' no longer exists at the time of registration of the FIR, nonetheless an offence can be made out under Section 15 if it is established that the person accused had 'stored' or 'possessed' of any child pornographic material with the specified intention at any particular point of time even if it is anterior in time."
"If for instance, a person immediately after storing and watching child pornography in his mobile phone deletes the same before an FIR could be registered, could it be said that the said person is not liable under Section 15, because at the time of registration of the FIR, such material no longer existed on the device of the person accused? The answer to the aforesaid, must be an emphatic “no”.
"Thus, we clarify that there is no requirement under Section 15 of the POCSO that 'storage' or 'possession' must continue to exist at the time of initiation of the criminal proceeding, and no such requirement can be read into the said provision. An offence can be made out under Section 15 if it is established that the person accused had 'stored' or 'possessed' of any child pornographic material with the specified intention at any particular point of time even if it was before such initiation or registration of criminal proceedings."
The top court has suggested that the Parliament should bring a law to replace the term 'child pornography' with 'Child Sexual Exploitative and Abusive Material' amending the POCSO Act.
The top court has directed all other courts not to use the term 'child pornography'.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
