In the last few years Indian internet service providers (ISPs) like Airtel, Jio, BSNL and others have blocked hundreds of porn and file-sharing websites. When users try to access these blocked websites they are shown a message telling them that the website has been on directions of Department of Telecom. Now the government, in a reply to an RTI query, has clarified that DoT has indeed issued orders for blocking of porn sites in India but has done so because of three specific court orders.

Recently, the Internet Freedom Foundation -- a group dealing with issues related to tech policy -- filed two RTI applications with the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The information that the government reveals explains why porn websites have been blocked on networks run by Indian ISPs like Airtel and Jio.

In its RTI reply, MeitY says that there are three specific orders. Two of the three court orders were passed by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of the Esplanade Court in Mumbai in 2016 and 2017. Under this, 500 websites were reportedly blocked in a single day after a complaint from the cyber police department. The third order was from the Uttarakhand High Court that led to the national blocking of pornographic sites containing child porn content.

In total 857 websites were blocked after the court order in Uttarakhand, although DoT in instructions it passed to ISPs noted that only websites that contain child pornography should be banned.

The RTI reply from MeitY hints that the government is not proactively banning watching porn in India. In India, watching pornography in private is not illegal, although watching or accessing child pornography is. Also, producing pornographic content, or distributing it, is not allowed in India.

Explaining the information received the RTI reply, Internet Freedom Foundation writes: "The information received by us (from the government) gives rise to a reasonable inference that the Government is not issuing directions to block porn unless it is child pornography. To us, this means that there are no existing directions for pro-active blocking of obscene content by ISPs, and they should not be doing so without a specific court order directing them to block individual URLs."