NAINITAL: Taking cognizance of news reports of gang rape of a minor girl student at a boarding school in Dehradun and sexual assault of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl child in a school bus in Haldwani Uttarakhand high court (HC) on Thursday gave a series of directions to implement the ban on pornographic websites.Attributing the rising cases of rapes in the country to the unrestricted access of people, especially youngsters to porn sites, the HC directed the central government to immediately implement the notification issued three years ago regarding ban of porn websites in the country.The division bench of acting Chief Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari, said in its order, “The ministry of communication and IT, department of telecommunications, government of India has issued a notification on July 31, 2015 which was circulated to all the Internet Service License Holders. The department of electronics & information technology (DELTy) has requested department of telecommunications to notify intermediary for disablement of the URLs under the provision of section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 , as the contents posted on these websites infringed morality and decency.”The judges further said, “Though the directions were issued to all the Internet Service License Holders, but till date, all the intermediaries have not followed the same in letter and spirit. The sites are readily available to the children to view obscene and indecent acts, including pornography. The psyche of the children of impressionable age is getting affected, which, at times, results in commission of crimes.”Issuing a set of mandatory directions, the judges said, “All the Internet Service License Holders are directed to punctually obey the notification dated July 31, 2015 and to block the publication or transmission of obscene material in any electronic form, transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act or conduct and also publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act or conduct forthwith."The court further directed the Centre to “suspend the licenses of the Internet Service License Holders under section 25 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, if the notification dated July 31, 2015 is not complied with.”The judges also ordered the state government to “ensure completion of the inquiry and investigation (of the Dehradun school gang rape case) within a period of eight weeks. The matter was thereafter listed for October 11.Commenting on the order, Arvind Vashishth, senior advocate of the HC who was appointed amicus curie in the matter, told TOI, “This is a welcome order which will help in curbing grievous crimes such as rapes which are on the increase.”