Purpose of establishing a web portal to report cybercrime would be defeated if the complainants had to run around following up - SC

Bench: A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath

As the Supreme Court noted on Tuesday, the purpose of establishing a dedicated web portal to report cybercrime would be defeated if the complainants had to run around following up.

According to the bench, the portal should not just be a complaint center, but a comprehensive mechanism that provides central oversight and coordination among state authorities.

The court was hearing a case that was initiated suo motu in 2015 by Prajwala, an NGO that wrote to then Chief Justice of India HL Dattu. Along with the letter/complaint, a pen drive containing two YouTube videos of rape was included.

As a result, the Court had taken suo motu cognizance of the letter and explored the possibility of blocking videos of sexual assault and child pornography.

The Supreme Court constituted a committee in March 2017 to advise the Court on the feasibility of preventing the dissemination of videos depicting gang rape, child pornography, and rape.

Due to end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp told the Supreme Court in 2018 that removing objectionable content related to child pornography was impossible.

As part of the proposal, the government proposed automating the deletion of illegal content and appointing contact officers and escalation officers based in India, among other things.

Furthermore, it was suggested that law enforcement agencies should be requisitioned to handle complaints in this regard round-the-clock, and such requisitions should be handled as quickly as possible to ensure that unlawful content is removed.

In this regard, the Court had directed the launch of an online reporting portal for cybercrime to be expedited.

At the hearing on Tuesday, amicus Curiae Aparna Bhat said that the portal currently has 'jurisdictional roadblocks', giving the example of a complainant being required to go to Telangana. Further, the committee formed had last met in 2021.

The bench directed the Central government to organize another meeting of the committee.