Important Cases on Child Sexual Abuse Material: Section 67B Case Law

This is the one field of content law where the usual balances do not apply: child protection is treated as a compelling interest that overrides speech, privacy and safe-harbour claims, and the statute is read strictly in the child's favour. The leading authority settled that even possession and viewing are punishable and reformed the very vocabulary the courts use. Topic 61 states the offence; this note, as asked, is the dedicated case digest, kept at the level of statute and holding.

1. The Framework

Figure 1: Statute, authority and duties

• The statutory frame. s.67B of the IT Act with the POCSO Act, 2012 forms the dedicated regime, reaching the creation, collection, browsing, downloading, advertising, promotion and distribution of material depicting children in sexually explicit conduct, read strictly in favour of child protection and without the defences available elsewhere in content law (Topic 61)
• The compelling-interest footing. Child protection operates as a compelling State interest that limits speech and privacy claims: there is no safe-harbour, consent or benign-purpose defence in this field, and the community standards analysis of ordinary obscenity does not soften it (Topic 124)

• The inchoate and reporting duties. s.67B read with POCSO s.15 on possession and failure to delete or report, and the mandatory reporting obligations on persons and institutions: failure to report is itself an offence, closing the gap between passive holding and active dealing (Topic 61)
• Intermediary obligations. Proactive detection and takedown, preservation and reporting duties under the 2021 Rules, Rule 4(4) deploying automated tools against such material, with referral mechanisms to the designated authorities, and the two-hour removal clock for the imagery (Topics 74, 111)
• Created how, reached all the same. The material is caught whether real or synthetically generated: s.67B's depiction standard does not require that any real child was photographed, so AI-generated child sexual abuse material is squarely within it (Topics 92, 111)

2. Quick Revision

Figure 2: The settled positions

3. Frequently Asked Questions

Is possession or viewing of child sexual abuse material an offence?

Yes. In Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish the Supreme Court set aside a contrary High Court order and held that possession, storage and viewing are themselves punishable under Section 67B of the IT Act read with Section 15 of the POCSO Act, there being no benign-possession defence, and that the failure to delete or report such material is an offence in itself. The Court also commended replacing the term child pornography with child sexual exploitative and abuse material (CSEAM).

Does Section 67B cover AI-generated material?

Yes. Section 67B penalises material depicting children in sexually explicit conduct by reference to the depiction, not to whether a real child was involved, so synthetically generated or morphed material falls within it exactly as a photograph would, read with the POCSO regime. No safe-harbour, consent or community-standards defence applies, and intermediaries carry proactive detection, takedown, preservation and reporting duties, with the fastest removal clocks for the imagery.

4. Related Topics

• Topic 61: Sections 67 to 67C. The offence and its elements.
• Topic 111: Deepfake vs Morphed Image. Why synthetic depictions are caught.