Days after drawing flak for banning 857 adult websites across the country, the BJP-led government on Tuesday released a fresh order lifting ban on porn in India.
The Centre has directed the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to unblock all the websites except those featuring child pornography.
"The intermediaries (ISPs) are hereby directed that they are free not to disable any of the 857 URLs... which do not have child pornographic content," the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said in an order, according to Hindustan Times.
The DoT officials said that this is just an interim order and other measures will be taken after the Supreme Court hears the matter on 10 August. The apex court will hear the arguments from NGOs, civil society members, parents, child councillors, ISPs and the government.
"The government is directing internet service providers (ISPs) as an interim measure to disable porn sites featuring child pornography. Other considerations will be looked into after court hearing," HT quoted a top official as saying.
However, a necessary ban will be imposed if the order is violated and child pornography is seen on the websites, officials said.
"If in case a complaint is made on finding that there is child pornography on any of these sites, then the DoT will issue the necessary ban at that time," Mint quoted a senior executive at one of the ISPs as saying.
Meanwhile, the government is still mulling appointing an ombudsman to monitor cyber content, particularly child pornography, a ministry official told HT.
The government had issued the order to all ISPs across India directing them to block 857 porn or adult websites. The DoT issued the order under the provision of section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 "as the content hosted on these websites related to morality, decency as given in Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India" the order said.
The sudden ban on porn enraged the public who compared the Modi-government with Taliban for "controlling" their personal liberty.
After the people lambasted the government on social media, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad held a meeting with IT secretary RS Sharma, additional solicitor general Pinky Anand and others on Tuesday, and decided not to ban those websites that do not feature child pornography.
"The instant action is basically in obedience to the observation of the Supreme Court where the court asked the department to take action on the list of alleged porn sites provided by the petitioner," Prasad said.
He said that the government is not against people's freedom or fundamental rights.
"The government compliments the dissemination of idea on the social media. We have launched the mygov platform seeking views of people of India on developmental agenda and lakhs of people are participating on this platform," he added.
