The top court posted the matter for further hearing in February next year
The Supreme Court said on Tuesday the Centre may frame guidelines or standard operating procedure (SoP) to eliminate online videos and images of child pornography and rape. The top court was hearing a matter following a letter sent in 2015 to the Chief Justice of India at the time, HL Dattu, by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala, along with two rape videos in a pen-drive. The bench, comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and UU Lalit, said the guidelines or SoP in this regard may be implemented within two weeks.
"The Government of India may frame the necessary guidelines/SoP and implement them within two weeks so as to eliminate child pornography, rape and gang rape imageries, videos and sites in content hosting platforms and other applications," the bench said in its order.
The top court posted the matter for further hearing in February next year.
It had on December 6 said that the Centre and internet giants, including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, were in agreement that videos of rape, child pornography and objectionable material were needed to be "stamped out".
The Centre had last month suggested to the court that the intermediaries should deploy trusted flaggers for identifying and deletion of unlawful content, and set up a 24x7 mechanism for dealing with requisitions of law enforcement agencies.
It had also suggested that there should be prompt disposal of requisitions of law enforcement agencies to remove unlawful contents.
The court had on its own taken cognizance of the letter and asked the CBI to launch a probe to apprehend the culprits.
The NGO's letter had also mooted the idea of maintaining a national sex offenders' register which should contain details of persons convicted for offences like eve-teasing, stalking, molestation and other sexual assaults.