HC directs police to give details of child porn to NCRB to notify content for removal

new delhi: The Delhi High Court has directed police agencies to forward sexually explicit material relating to a 24-year-old woman, who was a minor when the pictures were taken, to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) for notifying the objectionable contents for removal from the Internet.

The high court also directed Facebook and Google to remove the offending contents and URLs from their platforms.

It also directed the police authorities to use protocols and resources available with the NCRB and other concerned agencies to identify persons who are reloading the offensive contents on the Internet in India and take action against them.

In the circumstances, this court directs the concerned police agencies to forward offending material relating to the petitioner, which undeniably falls within the scope of sexually explicit material relating to a child, to the NCRB.

The NCRB shall also use the protocols available in terms of the Memorandum of Understanding entered into with NCMEC or otherwise to notify the offending material in order that the same can be actioned and removed from other platforms as well, Justice Vibhu Bakhru said.

National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a non-profit organisation involved in helping to find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimisation.

The court's order came on a petition by a young woman, who was 16-year-old in 2012 when she became friends with a boy of her class and entered into a relationship that later turned abusive. The woman said the boy used to emotionally blackmail her and compelled her to send her intimate photographs to him. She succumbed to the tactics and started sending him the photos. However, she later broke her relations with the boy and went abroad for higher studies, where the boy allegedly tried to throttle her, following which the concerned court had issued restraining orders.