Difficult to ban porn sites: Centre to Supreme Court

In response to a Supreme Court notice, the central government has expressed its inability to block all international pornographic websites in India owing to technological and legal constraints.

Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaisingh described to the Bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir that the government was facing roadblocks in blocking internationally located websites thanks to lack of adequate legal provisions and technological issues like the position of the servers. In response, the apex court has advised the government to work with various ministries to come up with a solution for the issue.

Government unable to ban all international porn sites (Image credit: Getty Images)

Back in April, Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani had filed a PIL stating that while watching obscene videos did not count as an offence, it was one of the major reasons behind crimes against women. In response, the SC had sought a response from the government on this plea to block and ban pornographic websites on the Internet, especially ones depicting child pornography.

In June, the Department of Telecom (DoT) directed Internet service providers to go ahead and block access to about 39 websites that allowed users to trade pornographic content. The ban encompassed forums where explicit images were shared and downloaded and URL to such images shared.

While watching adult porn is not banned in India, watching or distributing child pornography is illegal. The websites blocked were hosted outside India and claimed to be operating under the 18 USC 2257 rule enforced by the US that requires producers to maintain records that the actors were over 18 years of age at the time of the video being shot.

A senior DoT official had said that the department was merely following orders issued by the cyber security coordination committee and was unable to talk about specific reasons behind the block.