The Supreme Court’s Women Lawyers Association (WLA) has asked the Supreme Court to ban porn websites from the internet, to implement porn victim protection measures and to direct law enforcement agencies for stricter prevention of porn distribution, reported Live Law.

The WLA through its secretary Prerna Kumari has instructed advocate on record Sneha Kalita and advocate Shiva Vijaya Kumar to intervene in the writ of Kamlesh Vaswani that challenges several sections of the Information Technology Act 2000

WLA argues that porn “corrupts the mind of the young generation today”. Senior counsel Mahalakshmi Pavani has settled the WLA’s intervention application.

It states in its application that based on Wikipedia and a Times of India report it has come to the following conclusions, among others:

“Pornography corrupts the mind of the young generation today, who tend to commit crime against women/girls/children. Crime against women has been increasing at a very high rate in the country today. And it is an important matter of concern for the country today.”

“the easy availability of porn through internet,C.D.,porn videos/porn clippings are the root cause of most of the offences as well as crime against women/girls/children.”

The WLA has prayed for the following:

• To direct the government to promote dissemination and improvement of “filtering services”
• Strict measures to prevent distribution and access to pornography including through file sharing software
• Enhancement and reinforcement of victim support
• More efficacious blocking and elimination of child pornography
• Installation of jammers in school buses to prevent bus drivers and in charge of the buses from accessing porn on their mobile phones
• Increase awareness on “proper use of internet”

The government had ordered blocking 857 websites, including but not exclusively several porn sites, in August.

The WLA was recently accused of harassment by serial Supreme Court public interest litigant ML Sharma, against whom the WLA had filed a writ for the misogynist views he allegedly expressed in the 16 December rape documentary India’s Daughter.