Storage of child porn on phone is offence: Karnataka high court

Bengaluru: Mere storage of child pornography on your mobile phone also amounts to an offence, the Karnataka high court has reiterated.Citing a Supreme Court, the high court recently refused to quash the proceedings against an accused from Kerala in relation to a child pornography case.The accused, hailing from Thrissur, challenged the case registered by Bengaluru's Commercial Street police last year.The petitioner claimed that mere storage of child pornography did not amount to an offence and that it became an offence only if it was transmitted. However, Justice M Nagaprasanna referred to a judgment of the Supreme Court which had held that possession or storage of pornographic material involving a child would attract the rigours of the Information Technology Act and the Pocso Act. It held that the Pocso Act would also penalise the mere storage or possession of child pornographic material when done with the specific intent to share or transmit, without requiring any actual transmission or dissemination, the judge added.The petitioner admittedly stored sexually explicit pictures and videos of children, which amounted to the storage of child pornography. Merely because the petitioner did not transmit anything from his phone did not mean that he was not liable for the ingredients of the offence. It was for the petitioner to come out clean in a full-blown trial, Justice Nagaprasanna observed while rejecting the petition.