BENGALURU: Holding that browsing child pornographic material is an offence under Section 67(B)(b) of the Information Technology Act, the High Court of Karnataka rejected a petition filed by a 47-year-old man, challenging the case registered against him for watching child pornography on his mobile phone.
Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order on July 19 while rejecting the petition filed by Inayathulla N of Hoskote near Bengaluru. The case was registered by Bengaluru CEN Crime Police under Section 67B of the Information Technology (IT) Act on May 3, 2023.
Inayathulla was booked for allegedly viewing a website that exhibits pornographic material of children on March 23, 2022, after it was tracked by Cyber Tipline, which placed an alert on its Tipline about the IP address that led to his mobile number and then to his address.
Inayuthulla questioned it on the grounds that his action won’t attract Section 67-B as he was watching a pornographic website on his mobile phone and never intended to circulate anything.
Government had filed application to recall order in child porn case
Allowing Inayuthulla’s plea, relying on Section 67B(a) of the IT Act, on July 10, the high court quashed the case against him. The court stated that he had watched the pornographic website and that it would not become publishing or transmitting of material as is necessary under Section 67B of the IT Act.
After the release of this order, the state noticed the short assistance rendered by it and the fact that the Cyber Tipline was not heard in the matter. Therefore, additional state public prosecutor BN Jagadeesha filed an application to recall the order and to bring in Section 15 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, since it was not brought to the knowledge of the court. He also drew the attention of the court that the offences against the petitioner attract 67B(b) which states that browsing is also an offence.
Therefore, the application filed by the state was taken up by the court. It recalled its earlier order passed on July 10 and issued the order rejecting Inayathulla’s petition on July 19. While recalling the order, Justice Nagaprasanna said if Section 67B(a) was only looked into, it would have become unjust. Section 67B(b) applies to the petitioner’s case.
“Errors do happen. To err is human. We judges are also humans, infallibility is not known to humanity. Therefore, at times, we are fallible. Fallibility is not alien to the functions that judges perform. To rectify the error is the compulsion of the judicial conscience. To eternalise or immortalise the error, after knowing it, is no heroism. In the aforesaid circumstances answering the judicial conscience, compelling enough it is, apart from it being legally expedient, I deem it appropriate to recall the order,” the judge observed.