In a historic ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court declared that the term “child pornography” should be replaced with the term “child sexual exploitative and abuse material” to describe these types of cases. When handling cases involving child sexual abuse and exploitation, the highest court instructed all courts to refer to the material instead of calling it “child pornography”.
Today, the Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal to store or view pornographic material featuring children in violation of the Information Technology (IT) and POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses) acts.
Additionally, the top court recommended to Parliament that the POCSO Act be amended to redefine “child pornography” as “child sexual abusive and exploitative material.”
The court ruled that in order to more accurately reflect the reality of such offenses, the Parliament should give serious consideration to amending the POCSO to replace the term “child pornography” with “child sexual exploitative and abuse material” (CSEAM).
“The Union of India may, in the interim, contemplate implementing the recommended modification to the POCSO through an ordinance.We made it clear to the courts that any reference to “child pornography” would not be allowed in any court order or ruling; instead, the term “child sexual exploitative and abuse material” (CSEAM) ought to be accepted,” the ruling stated.
The landmark verdict today overturned the Madras High Court judgment that had quashed a criminal case against a 28-year-old man, charged for downloading and watching on his mobile phone some pornographic content involving children. The top court today restored the criminal proceedings against the accused.
CJI DY Chandrachud who was also part of the same bench said that it is a landmark judgment and the first instance in the world where the law on child sexual exploitative and abuse material is dealt with in such detail by the judiciary.