With child pornography getting free circulation on the internet traffic, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to explain what action it had taken over the years to block websites that promoted such content.
Issuing notice on a petition filed by an Indore-based lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani, who blamed the easy access of such websites to be the major cause for violence against women, the bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir also appointed a cyber expert lawyer Misun Hossain to assist them in the matter.
Initially, the bench was not convinced to entertain the matter as it felt that the Centre could not block websites that are connected to servers in far-flung countries. But the petitioner’s lawyer Vijay Panjwani showed a July 2003 order issued by Ministry of Communications giving power to the Centre to block websites with child pornography content.
“The sexual content that people are accessing today is far more graphic, violent, brutal, deviant and destructive and has put entire society in danger so also safety threats to public order in India,” the petition said.
“Most of the offences committed against women/
girls/children are fuelled by pornography,” it added.