The Madras High Court on Friday quashed a case registered by police against a Chennai youngster for downloading and watching two child porno videos on his phone.

The Ambattur police had also seized the phone which the youth had downloaded the porno.

Justice Anand Venkatesh, while quashing the case, said that the new generation of youngsters and teenagers are getting addicted to porn just like the earlier generations were addicted to liquor and cigarettes, and instead of punishing these youngsters, society must be mature enough to counsel them out of this addiction.

He also held that watching porn videos in private, per se, would not attract either Section 14 (1) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 or Section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which had been pressed against the youngster, following an anonymous complaint.

The court also stated that the two videos of a couple of teens having sex with an adult woman, which was downloaded from the Internet, had remained only within the private domain of the youngster.

It also said that the youth was summoned by the court and admitted that he was addicted to watching porn films on the Internet and had also admitted that he was trying to get out of the habit and was willing to undergo counselling.

The judge also listed out statistics from a recent study, noting that nine out of ten students were addicted to porn videos and added that this was affecting their psychological and mental well-being.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)