The Indian government has once again passed a ban on pornographic websites. This time, a list of 827 sites have been sent to ISPs based on a ruling passed by the Uttarakhand High Court.
The order passed by the High Court originally included 857 sites, reports News18, but after review by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MEITY), 30 websites from the list reportedly did not have any pornographic content in them. MEITY later passed on the updated list to the Department of Telecom (DoT). As of now, 827 websites named in the order have been blocked, notes the report.
In a statement made by the DoT to all ISPs throughout the country, it said,"... all the internet service licensees are instructed to take immediate necessary action for blocking of 827 websites as per the direction from MEITY and for the compliance of the Hon'ble High Court order."
Initially issued by the high court on September 27, MEITY reportedly received the order on October 8. MEITY went ahead and informed DoT that there is a high court order issued from Uttarakhand to block 857 websites. This was similar to an old notice of the DoT dated July 31, 2015 -- the first time the government took actions against porn website in India.
DoT reportedly changed the order by August 2015, passing it on to ISPs saying that it was up to them to disable or not disable any of the 857 sites so long as they do not have any content related to child pornography.
