Wife files petition in SC over husband's pornography addiction

In a bizarre state of events, a woman has filed a petition in the apex court stating how addiction of pornography is destroying matrimonial life of people. It is surprising how this petition has come forward, at the time when the SC is still examining the menace of child pornography websites and exploring ways to block them. The petition filed by the woman states that her matrimonial life had been destroyed since the time her husband became addicted to online pornography and pleaded the court to direct the Centre to take immediate steps to ban such obscene sites. She further contended that, if her husband developed the addiction despite being a well educated person and in his advancing years, the impact of pornography sites would be much more harmful to the youth. In the present matter, the petitioner told the court that she was happily married for the past 30 years but some matrimonial issues started to crop up in 2015, when her husband got addicted to pornography websites despite being father of two children. She stated that & quot My husband has lately become an addict of porn and spends a lot of his precious time watching pornography which is now-a-days easily accessible through the internet. As a result, he has fallen prey to this addiction of watching pornographic videos and pictures which have made his mind perverted and ruined my matrimonial life.” In her petition, she has further mentioned about how her children are being affected due to her husband's porn addiction and the matrimonial dispute that has arisen because of the same reason. & quot Easy access of violent and hardcore porn websites is causing immense damage to family values in India. People of all ages are becoming perverted and morally bankrupt due to porn addiction. My husband is in his advancing years but still he has gone astray due to porn addiction, imagine what this addiction can do to the innocent minds of youth and children,& quot she said. The Supreme Court had earlier asked the Centre to block all child pornography websites and had also told the government that the excuse of technical difficulty in banning such sites would not be accepted as a ground for non-compliance of its order. Expressing concern over multiple child pornography websites which are being deliberately run with perversity to make money, the court had asked the government to sit with Information Technology experts to find out ways and means to block such websites.

The present petition filed by the woman raising concern about easy access to pornographic material is justified as far as the younger generation is concerned. But a complete ban on the same cannot be justified. However, considering the sensitivity of the matter at hand, the government can impose certain restrictions on access to porn by imposing some fee for accessing such sites or by making only a few sites available for access. These measures will control and regulate the availability of porn.