The Supreme Court ruled that mere viewing of child pornographic material on the internet is also an offence under Section 15 of the Pocso Act and provisions of Information Technology Act, thus considerably expanding the scope of the two laws through purposive interpretation.
Expressing concern over rising trend of child pornography on the internet, a bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala widened the ambit of Pocso Act and said, “Any act of viewing, distributing or displaying of any child pornographic material by a person over the internet without any actual or physical possession or storage of such mterial in any device or in any form or manner would also amount to ‘possession’ in terms of Section 15 of Pocso Act.”
This verdict by the Supreme Court settled conflicting high court verdicts and accepted senior advocate H S Phoolka’s argument on behalf of NGO ‘Just Rights for Children Alliance’ to set aside an “egregiously erroneous” order of Madras HC, which had quashed a Pocso case against a porn-addict man merely on the ground that he had not circulated it.
Justice Pardiwala emphasised more than once the need to bridge the gap between the oft-repeated legal maxim ‘innocent till proven guilty’ and ‘reasonable suspicion’ warranting police to take preventive measures against a possible child abuse offence.
However, the SC was aware of the vagaries of social media and the internet, where certain material get automatically downloaded and protected the device owner against prosecution as he/she may not even be aware of the offensive material.
The bench said if any material finds it way into a device due to an automatic download, existence of which was not in the knowledge of the owner, then lack of action by owner wouldn’t be deemed offence.
