Prerna Gala
Published on: September 13, 2022 at 20:29 IST
The Supreme Court declines to consider Nalin Kohli’s request to look into the relationship between pornography and sexual offences.
A petition [Nalin Kohli vs. Union of India] asking the Supreme Court to order the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) to gather information in order to establish a connection between the viewing of pornographic material and the committing of sexual offences was denied on Monday.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat rejected the petition submitted by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson and attorney Nalin Kohli, stating that it would be challenging to carry out such a directive.
“NCRB only maintains records and now if we start determining what is a crime, then it will become cumbersome for authorities. It is a thin ice. Now you are looking for a tendency. Whether someone is a serial rapist or addicted to this…there cannot be empirical evidence. How many convictions can you show? Our directions have to be implementable,” the Bench observed.
The Court continued by stating that it needed to exercise caution because the petitioner was pushing for a form of surveillance.
“You will have to tell us what is the viewership. If it is so offensive, then government has enough arsenal to handle this.”
Kohli sought the Court to order the authorities to take into consideration creating a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that would include the consideration of watching pornographic material when conducting rape and sexual assault investigations in addition to collecting data.
The petition alleged that watching violent, non-consensual pornographic or sexually explicit media encouraged people to commit rape or sexual assault.
The petition emphasized the growing number of rape and sexual violence occurrences, especially those committed by juveniles against women and children, that have been scientifically connected to the reading of pornographic content.
“Because there is a whole body of research that unequivocally confirms that the viewing impact of pornographic and sexually explicit material leads to aggressive behaviour towards women and children in general even treating such aggressive sexual acts as normal,” the plea stated.
Furthermore, it was mentioned that the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) records reflected the quantity of occurrences rather than the causal reasons.