Come clear on plea for porn ban, Centre told
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, March 28
The Supreme Court today sought the Centre’s response to a plea for restoring the ban on pornographic websites.
A Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra asked Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand to clarify the government’s stand while filing its affidavit on the issue. Anand sought two weeks’ time to obtain the views of the National Commission for Women and others in order to arrive at a conclusion.
The Bench is hearing a PIL filed in 2013 seeking a directive to the government to block websites hosting child pornography. In August 2015, the Centre had directed the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block 857 such websites, but withdrew the order within a week.
Appearing for the PIL petitioner, advocate Vijay Panjwani today pleaded for restoring the ban until the disposal of the public interest litigation. ASG Anand told the Bench that the government had taken back its order after noticing that most of the banned sites had nothing to do with porn.
At the last hearing a month ago, the Centre had said it was taking steps to block child pornographic content on the internet with the cooperation of Interpol as part of a global initiative, but was not in a position to banish other porn sites.
