A criminal appeal was made against a judgement of a Magistrate who had made a prima facie case of obscenity under Section 67A of the IT Act and several sections of the Indian Penal Code against content posted by the appellant on YouTube and similar digital media platforms. The content displayed by the Appellant was not prefixed with either a warning or a disclaimer, nor was there any age categorisation. The District Court observed that the content had multiple words of profanity and was not suitable for the young minds who may get influenced by such easily available content. The Court directed removal of the IPC sections as the crime had taken place solely through online mode, and hence only attracted provisions of the IT Act. It ruled that the content was obscene in nature by applying a ‘community standard’ for obscenity, and opined that such standard for online content would be determined by the national community, attracting Section 67 and 67A of the IT Act. In regard to the lack of age categorisation, warnings and disclaimers, the provisions of Part II of the Ethics Code, were made out.
