The recent incident of an IIT student being harassed by a few Mumbai policemen, raises interesting legal and other issues. The Mumbai policemen alleged that the IIT student was carrying porn on his mobile phone, which was an offence under the law. Keeping and accessing pornography, on the mobile phone and other devices (computer and other electronic systems) are lawful and do not constitute any offence under the law. Under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, only transmission and publishing of pornographic material in electronic form, are criminal offences. Viewing, accessing, downloading, and collecting pornogrphic material, are not offences. These are lawful activities.
The case demonstrates lack of awareness amongst the people at large including the Mumbai policemen, with respect to the aforesaid law. Awareness of the law should be spread across the society so that no person can be harassed on account of such frivolous and flimsy allegations. Awareness would arm people with a response to an allegation such as the one made by the Mumbai police to harass the IIT student.
Even transmission of cyber porn between consenting adults, should have been excepted specifically from Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 67 of the I.T. Act does not recognize the legitimate rights of adults to share adult material. Section 67 is over-broad, impractical as it cannot be implemented in letter and spirit, and is amenable to misapplication and misuse. It is impossible to punish people transmitting and publishing cyber pornography, as the Internet is a global medium while laws are domestic and swing widely between liberal and conservative approaches. Can Section 67 be applied to cyber pornography that is originated from a foreign country where the law permits its publishing and transmission?
Action of these Mumbai policemen is a reflection of the general malaise prevalent in Police forces in India, where police is the main predator of peoples rights. Best solution is providing knowledge of Law in Schools as a subject, to be imparted by prominent lawyers as guest lecturers in High Schools. Kudos to Vivek for Making Cyber Law simple.
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