Downloading, watching child pornography falls under POCSO Act: SC

New Delhi: On Monday, the Supreme Court stated that downloading, storing and watching child pornography shall be treated as an offence under the POCSO Act.

The SC's ruling overturned a Madras High Court order which had earlier stated downloading or viewing such explicit content was not punishable.

The Madras HC judgement was termed as an egregious error by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala.

It may be mentioned that the Madras HC on January 11 of this year cancelled criminal proceedings against a 28-year-old man accused of being involved in downloading and viewing child pornography.

The court had then stated that watching such content in private did not fall under the POCSO Act.

However, the SC in a hearing on Monday stated that publishing and sharing child pornography were already considered an offence along with creating and downloading.

Noting the above, the SC restored the criminal proceedings against the accused.

The SC also asked the Central government to replace the word 'child pornography' with 'child sexually abusive and exploitative material' by bringing an amendment.