"Our Children Are At Stake": SG Tushar Mehta Assures Supreme Court Of Centre's Assistance On CSAM And Social Media Intermediaries
The Supreme Court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to take "very seriously" a plea concerning child sexual abuse material and alleged lapses by social media intermediaries
Observing that the circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a "very, very, very serious matter", the Supreme Court on Thursday called upon the Union Government to take the issue "very seriously" while hearing a plea that alleges lapses on the part of social media intermediaries in dealing with such content.
The Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran was hearing a plea filed by the NGO Justice Rights for Children Alliance.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Centre.
At the outset, addressing the Solicitor General directly, the Bench remarked, "Very, very, very serious matter, Mr Mehta. Take it very seriously."
Responding to the Bench, SG Mehta acknowledged the gravity of the issue and said, "Our children are at stake." He assured the Bench that the Centre would extend its assistance to the Court in the matter.
Counsel for the petitioner NGO also flagged concerns relating to the dark web, in addition to the alleged lapses by social media intermediaries that form the subject of the plea.
The Court asked the Solicitor General to study its order. The matter will be taken up after one month.
The backdrop: the September 2024 ruling on intermediary liability
In that judgment, the Supreme Court had held that a social media intermediary's compliance with Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000; the "safe harbour" provision, does not by itself absolve it of liability under the POCSO Act. The Court went on to hold, in paragraph 258 of that ruling, that reporting CSAEM to the US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) does not dispense with an intermediary's obligation to separately report the same to the Special Juvenile Police Unit (SJPU) or local police, as required under Section 19 of the POCSO Act.
The present Miscellaneous Application filed through AoR Sunita Sharma concerns the implementation of that 2024 judgment, including the formulation of an SOP, a centralised reporting mechanism, and protocols for detection, reporting, preservation and investigation of CSAEM by intermediaries and online platforms.
The applicant's core objection: don't let the file eclipse the child
The intervention application argues that any technological or administrative reporting chain must remain anchored in the child-protection framework of the POCSO Act, and not become an end in itself. It submits that upon detection of such material, the first institutional question cannot simply be who uploaded it and from where; it must equally ask: "Who is the child depicted in the material; where is that child; is the child presently safe; and does the child require immediate rescue, care and protection?"
The application draws a distinction between the digital-distribution dimension of such cases: tracing uploads, possession and circulation, and the child-protection dimension, namely identifying the child, investigating the underlying abuse, and ensuring rescue and rehabilitation. It contends that investigation of the former cannot substitute or postpone investigation of the latter, and that direct reporting to the SJPU or local police under Section 19 is what activates both the criminal investigation and the child-protection machinery simultaneously. "No SOP can dilute, defer, substitute or otherwise circumvent the statutory reporting obligation."
Flagging the SOP's drafting process
The application states that it has learnt that an SOP on reporting and handling CSAEM has been deliberated upon and prepared with the involvement of several stakeholders; the petitioner Just Rights for Children Alliance, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and the Centre for Social Research, which the applicant states is associated with Meta.
The applicant submits that where an entity associated with an intermediary directly affected by the statutory reporting obligations has participated in formulating the SOP, the circumstances and implications of that involvement cannot be overlooked, and argues that an SOP, being an executive or administrative instrument, cannot be drafted to override, dilute, postpone or create exceptions to the mandatory obligations under Sections 19 and 20 of the POCSO Act. On this point, the application states that any such arrangement would, in effect, "amount to absolving or relieving them of a mandatory obligation imposed by statute and affirmed by this Hon'ble Court and would therefore run contrary to the said judgment."
The applicant also notes that the existing reporting architecture; under which CSAEM reports flow from intermediaries to NCMEC, then to India's cybercrime.gov.in/I4C portal, and only thereafter to the concerned local police once jurisdiction is identified, was built into the POCSO Rules in 2018, when local cyber-investigation capacity was still developing. It argues that this multi-layered chain must now operate in addition to, and not as a substitute for, direct reporting to the SJPU or local police, especially given India's subsequently strengthened cyber-investigation framework under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam.
Case Title: Just Rights for Children Alliance & Anr. v. S. Harish & Ors
Bench: Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran
Hearing Date: October 15, 2026