Keeping the Internet Safe for Children: Supreme Court on Online Child Abuse Material and Platform Duties
The Supreme Court is hearing an application on the spread of Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material (CSEAM) on social media. The application was filed by child-rights groups (Just Rights for Children Alliance and Bachpan Bachao Andolan) in the case where the Court gave its 2024 judgment on this subject.
The application followed a media report alleging that paid advertisements promoting CSEAM ran on a major social media platform.
The Court made it clear that children cannot be blamed for such material. The wrongdoers are the person who creates the content and the platform (intermediary) that fails to act.
The petitioners say platforms report such cases to a US-based body, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), but do not report them directly to Indian police or the Special Juvenile Police Unit, as the POCSO Act requires. They want a uniform standard operating procedure (SOP) for platforms on detecting, reporting, preserving evidence and sharing IP address details.
In September 2026, the Court had given the Union government a final chance to place on record the steps it has taken to carry out the Court's 2024 directions. In October 2026, it asked the government to treat the issue very seriously.
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012
The POCSO Act is India's special law to protect children (every person below 18 years) from sexual abuse and exploitation. It makes child-friendly rules for reporting, recording evidence and trial, and sets up Special Courts. It also punishes making, sharing and storing sexual material involving children.
The current hearing is about whether platforms and the government are following the reporting duties under POCSO, as explained by the Court in 2024. The petitioners' main point is that reporting only to NCMEC leaves Indian police out of the loop.
Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000: Safe Harbour for Intermediaries
Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 protects online platforms (intermediaries) from being punished for what their users post. This protection is called "safe harbour". A platform keeps it only if it stays a neutral carrier, follows the government's due-diligence rules, and removes unlawful content quickly once it gets "actual knowledge" through a court order or a government notice.
The Court's remark that the intermediary that "slept on the watch" is also a wrongdoer reflects the idea that safe harbour comes with duties. If a platform fails to act on CSEAM, or profits from ads promoting it, its protection under Section 79 is in question.
Children's Rights and the Digital Environment
Children's rights in the digital environment means that all the rights a child has offline (to safety, privacy, education, play, free expression and being heard) also apply online. Children today use phones, games, social media and video apps from a very young age. This brings great benefits but also serious risks, such as abuse, bullying, addiction and misuse of their personal data. The idea asks governments, companies and parents to make the internet safe for children without simply shutting them out of it.
The Supreme Court's hearing is a test of how India's child-safety laws work online. By saying that children are never to blame, and that the creator and the careless platform are the wrongdoers, the Court is pushing for clear duties on platforms and the government, such as a uniform SOP and direct reporting to Indian police.
- Case: Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish; main judgment on 23 September 2024 (Bench led by then CJI D.Y. Chandrachud with Justice J.B. Pardiwala)
- Current application heard by Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran; filed by Just Rights for Children Alliance and Bachpan Bachao Andolan
- Trigger: report of paid advertisements promoting CSEAM on a social media platform
- September 2026: Union government given a final chance to report steps taken on the 2024 directions
- Demands: uniform SOP for platforms on detection, reporting, evidence preservation and IP details; direct reporting to SJPU or local police under POCSO, not only to the US-based NCMEC
- Key laws: POCSO Act, 2012 (Section 15); IT Act, 2000 (Sections 67B and 79); IT Rules, 2021; DPDP Act, 2023 (Section 9)