Watching pornography privately is not an offence, says Kerala High Court

Watching pornographic photographs or videos in one’s private time without showing them to others is not an offence under the law as it is a matter of personal choice, the Kerala High Court has held. The high court said that declaring such an act as an offence would amount to the intrusion of a person’s privacy and interference with his personal choice.

The ruling by Justice P V Kunhikrishnan came while quashing a case of obscenity under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code against a 33-year-old man who was back in 2016 caught by police while watching porn videos on his mobile phone on the roadside near the Aluva palace here. The order and ruling came on the accused person’s plea to quash the FIR and the court proceedings against him in connection with that.

The court said pornography was in practice for centuries and the new digital age has made it more accessible, even to children. “The question to be decided in this case is whether a person watching a porn video in his private time without exhibiting it to others amounts to an offence? A court of law cannot declare that the same amounts to an offence for the simple reason that it is his private choice and interference with the same amounts to an intrusion of his privacy," it said.