Admitting that cyber crime like “pornography” and “child pornography” are social issues pervading and affecting the society, the Centre has informed the Supreme Court about its two-pronged approach towards tackling the menace: by tracking such crimes online and plugging in the loopholes in the existing legal framework.
Stating this on an affidavit, the Ministry of Home Affairs informed the Supreme Court that a roadmap to achieve this end is being prepared by two expert panels. One of the panels comprising academicians from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and computer experts will suggest ways to track cyber crimes while the other panel, headed by former law Secretary TK Viswanathan, will recommend changes needed in law to tackle cyber crimes.
The affidavit came in response to a court order in a PIl asking Government about the steps undertaken to tackle child pornography and to block such content online. The PIl filed by a lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani had sought curbs on all forms of pornographic content online and demanded a separate law to keep such content under check.
The Government had informed the court during the course of hearing on the PIl that it was difficult to impose curbs on pornographic content online. Even blocking of websites known to carry sexually explicit or objectionable content was not considered fool-proof as these websites would resurface under a different name.
Viewing the problem as a social issue, the affidavit filed by Director, Home Ministry Ashutosh Jain said, “With the spread of computers and internet, cyber crime in the form of pornography, cyber stalking, cyber bullying, child pornography, harassment, hacking of email or social networking accounts, identity theft, unwanted exposure to sexually-explicit material, etc, has emerged as a major challenge for law enforcement agencies.”
Although the present legal framework affords action to be taken against child pornography under Section 13 to 15 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and even under Sections 67, 67A, 67B of Information Technology Act, 2000, the Government has felt that for an “effective prevention and combating” of the above crimes, the legal provisions need a revamp and so also the steps to track such offenders.