In 2013, lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani filed a petition before the Supreme Court of India challenging Sections 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 75, 79, 80 and 85 of the Information Technology Act 2000, and seeking a ban on all online pornography. It was also prayed that the consumption and dissemination of pornography be treated as a non-bailable and cognizable offence.
The case presents crucial implications for the intermediary liability regime in India, since the petition seeks to impose an additional obligation on ISPs to proactively identify and block all pornographic content, or risk being held liable.
During the course of the proceedings, the petitioners approached the Department of Telecommunications with a list of 800 websites alleged to be hosting pornographic content. The websites were blocked without any verification. The ban was revoked after much criticism.