Government working on bill to curb child & revenge porn: Solicitor general in SC

Government told the Supreme Court it is drafting a bill to prevent circulation of child pornography and offensive sexual videos online

NEW DELHI: Government on Tuesday informed Supreme Court it is in the process of drafting a bill to prevent social media circulation of child pornography, vindictive uploading of videos of consensual sexual acts after souring of relations, morphing of videos to ridicule or defame personalities, and permitting any person to file police complaint against such offensive contents.Solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of CJI Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana that deliberations are on for legislative intervention to prevent circulation of sexual contents, child porn and morphed videos on social media.

Mehta said he is not opposing the two PILs, one by Uday Mahurkar and another by NGO ‘Prajwala’, both of which seek robust mechanism to stop circulation of child pornography, sexual assault videos, uploading of videos of consensual adult sexual acts by jilted lovers and morphed videos.When a counsel said at present only the aggrieved person, in most cases women, can file police complaints against the person uploading such videos, the SG said the intermediary should not only be directed to immediately take down such offensive contents but also mandatorily file police complaint against the handle or digital device from which such contents were uploaded.The bench agreed that a robust legislative intervention would be required to stop the menace. It gave govt four weeks to inform the court about the outcome of the ongoing deliberations.