The top court also allowed the applicant to implicate the concerned social media intermediaries in the matter.The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on a petition seeking enforcement of its directions on mandatory reporting of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Material (CESAM) by social media intermediaries.A bench comprising Justices Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala and Krishnan Vinod Chandran issued a notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) following an application filed by Just Rights for Children Alliance (JRCA), a civil society network comprising NGOs working against sexual exploitation and trafficking of children and child marriage.The application referred to a BBC report, which alleged that Instagram carried paid advertisements promoting CESAM, and an Indian Express report which said that the Centre had issued notice to Meta, which owns Instagram, over the alleged revelations.The petition sought implementation and effective compliance of the September 23, 2024, judgement which said that social media intermediaries are under a mandatory obligation to report to police offences relating to CESAM under Section 19 and 20 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 read with Rule 11 of the POCSO Rules, 2020, which outlines the mandatory procedure for reporting child pornographic material.Appearing for JRCA, Senior Advocate H S Phoolka pointed out that social media intermediaries cannot be exempted under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act), unless they have exercised due diligence and complied with the provisions of the POCSO Act and the Rules.Section 79 of the IT Act deals with the circumstances in which a social media intermediary is exempted from legal liability.The application pointed out that the top court had in its judgement clarified that reporting instances of CESAM only to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, USA, would not satisfy the mandatory reporting obligations under the POCSO Act.Story continues below this adIt further said that, in addition, social media intermediaries are also required to report the commission or likely commission of POCSO offences to the Special Juvenile Police Unit or the local police in line with Section 19 of the Act.The top court also allowed the applicant to implicate the concerned social media intermediaries in the matter.