The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that downloading, storing, and watching child pornography is an offense under the POCSO Act, overturning a Madras High Court order that said that downloading and viewing such explicit content is not punishable.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala said the Madras High Court committed an egregious error in passing the judgment.
On January 11, the Madras High Court canceled criminal proceedings against a 28-year-old man from Chennai charged with downloading and viewing child pornography, observing that watching such explicit content in private would not fall within the scope of the POCSO Act.
During today's hearing, the Supreme Court restored the criminal proceedings against the Chennai man. It stated that publishing and sharing child pornography content was already an offense, apart from creating and downloading such material.
The court asked the central government to bring in an amendment to replace the word 'child pornography' with 'child sexually abusive and exploitative material'. It also directed other courts not to use the word 'child pornography' in cases, henceforth.