S. Muralidhar, J.

Introduction

1.1 Over three and a half years ago, an internet website carried a listing which offered for sale a video clip, shot on a mobile phone, of two children of a school in Delhi indulging in an explicitly sexual act. The petitioner, who was the Managing Director (MD) of the company that owned the website at the relevant point in time, asks this Court to annul his criminal prosecution for the offences of making available for sale and causing to be published an obscene product within the meaning of Section 292 Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act). This petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 (CrPC) also raises questions concerning the criminal liability of directors for the offences attributable to a company, both under the IPC as well as the IT Act, particularly when such company is not arraigned as an accused.

1.2 Before discussing the background and the sequence of events leading to the filing of this petition, it is necessary to understand the context in which the issues arise for determination. The regulation of pornography on the internet has posed a serious challenge t