So it is unclear that watching porn is a punishable offense or not.
Now, watching porn in India is not a crime, then what about accessing blocked porn websites? What happens, If you use a VPN to access a banned website in India? Are you in contempt of court by doing this?
If you are Indian, Then you need to follow the Rules/Laws below by The Supreme Court Of India.
- Under section 292, selling and distribution of any kind of pornographic material are illegal.
- Under section 293 and IT Act-67B, The distribution, sale, or circulation of obscene materials and the selling of pornographic content to any person under age 20 years are illegal.
- Under section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000, Child pornography is illegal and strictly prohibited across the country.
- Under section 292 and 293, manufacturing, publishing, and distribution of pornography are illegal.
History Of Pornography Ban In India
Before you understand what happens if you access banned websites in India, you should know what exactly has been the history of the porn ban in India.
In July 2015, the Supreme Court of India refused to allow the blocking of pornographic websites and said that watching pornographic content indoors in the privacy of one's own home was not a crime. - source Wikipedia.
In August 2015, the Government of India issued an order to Indian ISPs to block at least 857 websites that are considered to be pornographic. - source Wikipedia.
In 2015, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had asked internet service providers to take down 857 websites in a bid to control cybercrime, but after receiving criticism from the authorities it partially rescinded the ban. The ban from the government came after a lawyer filed a petition in the Supreme Court arguing that online pornography encourages sex crimes and rapes. - source Wikipedia.
In February 2016, the Supreme Court asked the Government of India to suggest ways of banning all forms of child pornography-related websites.- source Wikipedia.
In October 2018, this year the topic is again in the news because the government this year once again directed Internet service providers (ISPs) to ban 827 pornographic websites (following an order by the Uttarakhand High Court). The court cited the rape of a 10th standard girl from Dehradun by four of her seniors. The four rapist accused told Police that they raped the young girl after watching pornographic content on the Internet. - source Wikipedia.
Now, following the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directive, major telecom companies like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have banned many websites from their network including many genuine and legal ones. Also, the ban applies to even those websites that don't have child pornographic content on their platform.
But while companies like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have implemented the ban, Indian users are increasingly resorting to VPNs, DNS server change, proxies, and other tricks to access the blocked pornographic websites. For example, people are using inbuilt VPN Browsers to access these blocked pornographic websites. So, basically, there are ways to access these banned websites in India.
Now the questions come -
Can you go to jail for looking at a website in India?
= The answer is yes/no.
The IT Act states that publishing child porn or predating children online can lead to imprisonment of up to five years, or/and with fine up to Rs 10 Lakh on the first conviction. On second conviction Imprisonment up to seven years, or/and with fine up to Rs 10 Lakh. Watching or promoting child pornography is a serious punishable offense in India.
This means if you access a porn site that is showing child pornography, you can be punished. And you can be punished irrespective of whether you access a blocked website with such content or a website that is not blocked but has illegal content on it.
So, accessing a website with child porn makes you a criminal. Plain and simple.
Now, what about the websites that hold legally permissible porn content but are blocked in India, for example, a website like Pornhub that is probably blocked on Jio but not on Airtel?
As far as these websites are concerned, there is no particular law in India that prohibits you from accessing porn websites at home. The onus of implementing the block order successfully is on the service provider. And not on users. So users can -- If they can access legal porn site in India even if it is blocked. But if the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) finds that despite its orders, a website remains available on a network, the service provider may lose its license as per Section 25 of the IT Act 2000.
At the same time, some rules govern intermediaries -- such as internet service provider or cyber cafe owners -- when it comes pornographic content. Rules notified by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in 2011, states that accessing pornographic material is illegal if done in a public place, including at a cyber cafe. So, for example, if you are accessing a blocked porn site in India from a cyber cafe you could be in trouble.
But mostly, if you access the blocked website that has legal content, it should be fine. In all other instances, it is not up to individual internet users to respect the block on a website. It is up to service providers like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to ensure that websites are blocked on their network.
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