Viewing pornographic material does not amount to publishing or transmitting under Section 67B of the IT Act, thus proceedings were quashed.

ORDER

The petitioner is before this Court calling in question the proceedings in Crime No.200/2023 registered for offence punishable under Section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2008 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act' for short).

2. Heard the learned counsel Sri.S.Jagan Babu, appearing for the petitioner and the learned HCGP Sri.Harish Ganapathi, appearing for respondent No.1.

3. The facts in brief, germane, are as follows:

A compliant comes to be registered against the petitioner on an incident that happens on 23.03.2022. The incident is that the petitioner, between 3:50 p.m. to 4:40 p.m., has viewed a website, which holds in it pornographic material of children. This is noticed by the cyber Tipline, which placed an alert on its Tipline with regard to the IP address. IP address led to the mobile number of the petitioner and then to his address. A complaint then comes to be registered on 03.05.2023 after about two months on the aforesaid incident. The complaint then becomes a crime in Crime No.200/2023 for offence punishable under Section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2008 (hereinafter referred to as 'the IT Act' for short). Registering the crime, immediately drives the petitioner to this Court, in the subject petition.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner would vehemently contend that Section 67B of the IT Act is not even attracted in the case at hand. All that the petitioner was doing was, viewing a pornographic website on his mobile for about 50 minutes. The allegation is that he has viewed child pornography. He would contend that the petitioner is some what a porn addict and never intends to circulate anything, as he was himself only viewing the existing website.

5. Per contra, the learned HCGP would submit that the petitioner has admittedly indulged in watching child pornography. Therefore, such things should not be permitted to be continued. He would contend that it is a matter of investigation, as what the petitioner has done in the later days.

He would seek dismissal of the petition.

6. I have given my anxious consideration to the contentions of respective learned counsel and have perused the material on record.

7. The afore-narrated facts, lie in a narrow compass.

What leads to registration of crime, is an alert in the cyber Tipline that the petitioner watching a particular website on his mobile between 3:50 p.m. to 4:40 p.m. This results in registration of the complaint. The complaint reads as follows:

This complaint, leads to registration of a crime in Crime No.200/2023 for offence punishable under Section 67B of the IT Act. Whether watching pornography material would attract Section 67B of the IT Act, is what is required to be noticed. 7 Section 67B of the IT Act, reads as follows:

""67 B Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form.

Whoever,-

(a) publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted material in any electronic form which depicts children engaged in sexually explicit act or conduct or

(b) creates text or digital images, collects, seeks, browses, downloads, advertises, promotes, exchanges or distributes material in any electronic form depicting children in obscene or indecent or sexually explicit manner or

(c) cultivates, entices or induces children to online relationship with one or more children for and on sexually explicit act or in a manner that may offend a reasonable adult on the computer resource or

(d) facilitates abusing children online or

(e) records in any electronic form own abuse or that of others pertaining to sexually explicit act with children, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which ma