Follow TOI Tech on Twitter >>>

And like us on Facebook >>>

The Centre has said that Supreme Court ’s repeated criticism of the ministry of home affairs for “inaction” on the list of websites with child pornographic content provided by petitioner Kamlesh Vaswani was the principal trigger for the blocking of 857 of them.“The ministry has taken action on the basis of the list of adult websites showing child pornography as provided to the court by petitioner,” additional solicitor general Pinky Anand told TOI on Monday.The law officer said the ministry would soon file an affidavit in the Supreme Court explaining its action taken on the issue raised by the petition even as she emphasized only those adult websites which had child pornographic content were blocked.On July 8, the SC had criticized the MHA for its inaction on the list provided by Vaswani and Anand had promptly assured the court that all necessary action would be taken within a month. “The ministry will soon file a response to the petition and detail the action taken. All necessary steps under the Information and Technology Act will be taken,” she had said. Though the bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu had exhorted the MHA to take action against websites with child pornographic content, it had raised a fundamental issue when Vaswani’s counsel Vijay Panjwani persisted for blocking of all websites with adult content.The CJI-headed bench had said, “It is an issue for the government to deal with. Can we pass an interim order directing blocking of all adult websites? And let us keep in mind the possible contention of a person who could ask what crime have I committed by browsing adult websites in private within the four walls of my house. Could he not argue about his right to freedom to do something within the four walls of his house without violating any law?” The petition was filed in 2013 and then UPA government had requested the court to adopt a restrained approach. Through then additional solicitor general K V Vishwananthan, it had told the court that en mass blocking of websites for porn content could prove counter-productive.He had explained to court that good, bad and ugly websites could all get blocked if the petitioner’s approach was to be implemented. “Everything would be blocked and even good literature would be blocked and it would cause greater harm,” he had said.