The petitioner, who was the applicant in the petition filed as Crl.M.P. No. 4378 of 2008 before the Judicial First Class Magistrate-I, Cherthala, challenges the order dated 02.07.2008 passed by the learned Magistrate rejecting the application.

2. Thecase of the revision petitioner in the said petition can be summarised as follows:-

The complainant is a student of Asian School of Cyber Laws residing at Cherthala. While researching on Income Tax statutes relating to the State of Maharashtra, the complainant came across the website "www.incometaxpune.com". The google search results for the said website caption described the site as "helpful for tax payers living in Pune region. Taxpayers of the region can also lodge their complaints and get assistance through this website." Visiting the said site, the complainant was taken to a pornographic site which depicted numerous lascivious images of women thereby clearly violating Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act for short). The order dated 07.07.2003 issued by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India provides for the procedure for blocking of websites by submitting a complaint to the Director, CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) functioning under the Department of Information Technology. As per clause (viii) of paragraph V(1) of the said order, court has been given powers to issue a direction to the Director, CERT-In for blocking any such pornographic websites. The complainant, therefore, prays the court to send a complaint to CERT-In as per the provisions of the aforesaid Government Order directing the CERT-In to investigate and block the website referred to above in public interest.

3. The learned Magistrate rejected the petition styled as a complaint holding, inter alia, that the petition filed by the petitioner does not satisfy the description of a "complaint" as defined under Section 2(d) Cr.P.C. and that even as per the Government Order produced by the petitioner, the authority who merely because CERT-In can take appropriate action on a complaint preferred before its Director on the basis of a court directive the same, is not an indication of investiture of jurisdiction on a Magistrate to receive such complaints and issue directives as per the said Government Order. The learned Magistrate also observed that it would not be possible for the Magistrate to usurp the jurisdiction of the statutory functionary.

4. I heard the learned counsel for the revision petitioner as well as the learned Public Prosecutor.

5. Adv. Shri. D Prem Kamath appearing for the revision petitioner made the following submissions in support of the revision:-

The website in question is an unmistakable pornographic website which has to be blocked in public interest. Whoever be responsible for hosting the website is guilty of an offence punishable under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which reads as follows:-

Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form.-Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in the event of a second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and also with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees.

When the revision petitioner, having come across the obscene website was desirous of lodging a complaint before the Director CERT-In and it was for the said purpose that he moved the court which is one of the authorities listed under the aforementioned paragra