'Issue Of Public Importance': Supreme Court Asks Authorities To Consider Suggestions On Pornography Ban For Minors

The Supreme Court today disposed of a PIL seeking prohibition on minors' access to pornographic content and restriction on the watching of such content in public places. It gave the petitioner liberty to place the plea before the competent authority as a representation.

Noting that the issue raised was of "paramount public importance", the Court impressed upon the concerned authorities to give due consideration to the issues/suggestions mentioned by the petitioner in his plea.

"The issue raised is undoubtedly of paramount public importance. However, it is not a question of law that needs to be determined by this Court. It essentially involves a policy primarily based upon views of technological advancement. Such issues ordinarily fall in the domain of experts and authorities especially Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

We dispose of this petition without expressing anything on merits, granting liberty to the petitioner to forward a copy of the petition as representation before authorities, whom we impress upon to consider the issues raised by petitioner, or suggestions given by him. We have no reason to doubt that the authorities will give due consideration to such suggestion", the order stated.

A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana passed the order after hearing Advocate Varun Thakur (for petitioner-BL Jain). Among other things, the counsel contended that many countries have banned minors' access to pornographic content and that crime against women is particularly increasing due to easy accessibility.

Briefly put, the PIL was filed stating that, "every second 5000 porn sites were watched, since from 2005, More than 2 crore porn videos/porn clippings are being launched through Internet or porn videos each year, it estimates that more than 20 crores porn video/porn clippings including child pornography, are freely available in Indian market."

It relied upon Section 69A of the IT Act, which empowers the Central Government to issue directions for blocking public access to any information through any computer resource. The petitioner stated that despite the powers under the said provision, the Union had not exercised any such ban.

The reliefs sought were as follows -

a) Direction for formulation of a national policy and drafting of an action plan to curb the watching of pornography, especially qua those who had not attained the age of majority, and

b) Direction against the respondents to prohibit the watching of pornographic material of any form at public place.

Case Title: B.L. JAIN Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS., W.P.(C) No. 722/2025