Ban pornography, hate speech websites: CJI

Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan wants the Centre to consider imposing a ban on websites that exclusively circulate pornography and hate speeches.

“In many cases, images or videos are created without the consent of the persons involved and unscrupulously circulated for commercial gain. A routine practice is the morphing of the images of well-known persons into pornographic content. Such practices are a blatant invasion of privacy as well as attack on an individual’s dignity. However, there are inherent difficulties in using criminal laws to clamp down on them.”

Also, it would not be right to clamp a blanket ban on all categories of websites, the CJI said inaugurating a Cyber Law Enforcement Programme and National Consultation Meeting here on Sunday.

Apprehending that they could be vulnerable to cyber crime, Supreme Court judges had withdrawn details of their personal bank accounts from the official website, the CJI said.
Details published

He pointed out that they had published details of their assets on the website. Some of them gave bank account details.

But “within a week I got a letter from a person [asking us] please do not disclose your bank account [as] within days all your money will be taken by somebody else. So it is very easy to take money from your personal accounts using computer technology,” he said.

After receipt of the letter, the information was removed from the Supreme Court website and it was also suggested to judges that they change their account details, said Justice Balakrishnan.

Judges, presidents of State Judicial Academies, the Directors-General of Police of various States and cyber technology experts participated in the meeting, organised by the Supreme Court in association with the Cyber Appellate Tribunal, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Department of Information Technology and the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).

Justice Altamas Kabir of the Supreme Court, Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily, Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati and S. Sivakumar, Research Professor of the Indian Law Institute, spoke.