India has lifted the ban on pornography that had been imposed over the weekend, and had led to a furore over invasion of personal freedom.
According to Indian IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, only child pornography will remain banned and the government will soon issue a notification to this effect — TV channels reported.
Pornography websites will be classified into various categories and restrictions will be imposed on only certain classes. According to reports, the ban may also apply to violent forms of pornography such as those featuring rapes.
India had banned 857 porn websites in the country on ‘moral grounds’.
This was done by executive order after the Supreme Court of India refused to ‘ban’ porn, saying that it could be construed to be a violation of the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of India.
Supreme Court refused to ban born after Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani filed a public interest litigation alleging that pornography is showing people how to carry out crimes against women and children.
“Somebody can come to the court and say ‘Look, I am an adult and how can you stop me from watching it within the four walls of my room? It is a violation of Article 21 (right to personal liberty) of the Constitution.’ Yes the issue is serious and some steps need to be taken. The Centre has to take a stand, let us see what stand the Centre will take”, Chief Justice HL Dattu had said on July 9.
Vaswani and others claim that pornography increases sexual frustration and lead to attacks on women and children, there are also another group that say that watching pornography acts as a safety valve and a release to innate tendencies.
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