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The Supreme Court has agreed to review a High Court order which viewed pornographic content concerning children from the lens of addiction and morality
The Supreme Court on Monday has agreed to examine whether downloading & possessing child porn is a criminal offence.
The review of the issue comes in light of a Madras High Court order on January 11, which states that under Section 14(1) of the Protection of Child from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, a child or children must have been used for pornography purposes and only watching child pornography video would not constitute an offence under the said Section.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud expressed shock at the order and said that it was “atrocious” that such an order could be passed, considering that the section is clear about what stipulated an offence under the law against child sex abuse.
The petition on which a notice was issued was filed by NGO’s Justice for Child Rights Alliance & Bachpan Bachao Andalon.
The January 11 order of the High Court viewed pornographic content of children from an addiction lens and said that it was more to do with morality, while advising the 28-year old man to attend counseling, and thus quashed the case against him for downloading child pornography.
"Since he has not used a child or children for pornographic purposes, at the best, it can only be construed as a moral decay on the part of the accused person," court held.
Court said that regarding Section 67-B of the Information Technology Act, 2000, to constitute an offence under the Section, the accused person must have published, transmitted, or created material depicting children in sexually explicit act or conduct, which was not the case at hand.
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