The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Can’t block porn sites: Centre to SC
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, August 29
The Central government today expressed its helplessness to the Supreme Court in blocking “40 million pornographic websites”. It said though laws and rules were already in place, the rapid advancement of technology was coming in way of banishing salacious material on the internet.

However, the government told the Supreme Court that an advisory committee had been set up to deal with the problem of pornographic websites. Additional Solicitor General L Nageswara Rao told a Bench headed by Chief Justice RM Lodha that the committee was expected to submit its report within three weeks, upon which the court posted the next hearing on a PIL on the issue after a month.

Advocate Vijay Panjwani, appearing for petitioner Kamlesh Vaswani, contended that as many as 40 million porn websites were available on the internet and the government had not blocked a single site.

Rao said the government had always acted on complaints against specific websites. The government was planning to ask social websites to have their servers in India for effectively blocking such content. Also, free software was available which the parents could use at home to deny access to their children to internet porn. Panjwani, however, said this would not be of help as a lot of teenagers had their own cell phones with the internet facility.

Acknowledging the problem, the Bench said if the existing sites were blocked today a fresh set of 40 million websites could crop up tomorrow as scientific advancement was faster than enforcement of laws. “There is a need for synthesising laws, technology and governance. If you can’t enforce your laws, then there is no point in having them. A lot of homework is required to deal with the issue,” the Bench said.

Another SC Bench issued notice to the government on another PIL by internet service providers (ISPs) protesting against the frequent official orders asking them to block contents which they were not hosting.

Earlier, the government had contended that blocking pornography on the internet would involve filtering all the material, including emails, and this would slow down search results and electronic communication, besides coming in the way of accessing educational sites and transacting business.

Further, there would be legal impediments in shutting out contents hosted from servers in foreign countries where net porn was legal. Even if such material was blocked, technology was available to bypass the filtering process through encryption and view pornography, it was contended.

According to the PIL, some of the websites had graphic scenes of violence, brutality and deviant and destructive acts that would corrupt children, posing a grave threat to public order.

“Most offences committed against women, girls and children are fuelled by pornography. The worrying issue is that the severity and gravity of such images is increasing,” the petitioner contended.

Panel formed to deal with problem

* Additional Solicitor General tells SC that an advisory committee has been set up to deal with the problem

* The committee will submit its report within three weeks

* Petitioner's advocate contends that of the 40 million sites on the internet, the government has not blocked even one

* Government says even if the sites were blocked, technology will bypass the filtering process and view pornography

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