Karnataka High Court
– Photo: ANI (File)
Expansion
The Karnataka High Court has withdrawn its July 10 order which held that a person viewing child pornography online cannot be prosecuted under Section 67B of the Information Technology Act. The change was made after a bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna acknowledged the lapse in Section 67B(b) of the Act.
Justice Nagaprasanna had earlier dismissed the charges against Inayatullah N, saying that merely viewing pornographic material does not make one an accused as, to be prosecuted under Section 67B, it is necessary to publish or transmit the material. However, on a recall application filed by the state government, the court found that its earlier judgment had ignored clause (b) of Section 67B. This clause stipulates that creating, storing, searching, browsing, downloading, advertising, promoting, exchanging or distributing material depicting children in an obscene or sexually explicit manner falls within the ambit of Section 67B. The court said that Section 67B(b) is relevant to the case. It also said that the initial judgment erred in not considering this provision, due to which the proceedings were improperly quashed.