Law on Pornography!!!

Obscenity – personal viewing – Is it an offence

From a plain reading of Section 292 of the IPC it appears that if a person is in mere possession of the obscene material for his personal use without any intention to perform any of the purposes specified in section 292 (as stated above) it may not be an offence under section 292. In the case of Jagdish Chavla and others v/s the State of Rajasthan, 1999 CR LJ 2562 (Raj), the accused was caught viewing an obscene film on the television with the help of a VCR which along with the cassette was seized and a case under section 292 of the IPC was registered. The accused filed a petition in the High Court for quashing of the proceedings and it was held that simply being in possession of a blue film could not make a person guilty under section 292 unless it was further proved that the purpose of keeping the same was selling or letting it on hire. Therefore without proving the purpose of keeping the same no offence mentioned in section 292 was made out and the proceedings were quashed. The law therefore excludes from liability (under section 292) the mere possession of obscene material for ones own personal use without any intention to perform any of the purposes specified in section 292.

However, it would be prudent to be aware that a prosecution may lie for mere possession of obscene material also. It could be argued that a person, even though he is in mere possession of the obscene material which may be for his own personal use, actually aids and abets the publication, sale, hire, distribution etc of the obscene material, which is an offence under section 292. And under section 111 of the IPC, the abettor is held to be equally guilty of the offence which he has abetted provided it is proved that the offence is a probable consequence of the abetment.