SC: 'No empirical data' to link sexual crimes with pornography

The court was hearing a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court seeking to formulate an SOP by police to examine the impact of viewing pornographic material while investigating cases of sexual assault.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday observed that there cannot be empirical data on reasons linked to sexual crimes such as rape, and therefore it is not possible to link these crimes with pornography in the absence of a concrete data analysis. The court was hearing a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court seeking to formulate an SOP by police to examine the impact of viewing pornographic material while investigating the said cases.

During the hearing, the advocate Nalin Kohli mentioned a rape incident in Assam where a man raped a minor girl after she refused to watch pornography with him, thereby seeking certain directions to deal with matters of similar nature where pornography aggravates sexual crimes. Responding to his argument, the SC benchsaid there is no concrete data on such cases that can be taken as an authentic statistical base for the matter to move forward. "Details such as these are mentioned only as allegations in the FIRs or in the media. They cannot be considered as concrete data," the SC bench observed.

The bench further mentioned that there already exists a law on pornography. It also said that the case the counsel is citing is an individual matter, whereas coming to a certain conclusion would require data that's authentic and on record. "If there are 10k rape incidents, we will have to monitor how many of the perpetrators are watching pornography to decide whether there is a direct link. Considering the number of internet users India has, it is impossible to monitor that. It is therefore extremely difficult to establish a concrete ground to base the link between pornography and sexual crimes," the bench said.

It further clarified that the bench is not favoring the consumption of pornography or the perpetrators who commit these crimes, "but the petition seeks us to do something that is out of our control. As Kennedy had once said, we cannot burn a house to roast a pig," Justice Ravindra Bhat said, citing a similar case from the US.