New Delhi, Oct. 15 -- The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to issue orders on preventive steps to be taken by the Centre and other stakeholders against child sexual exploitative and abuse material (CSEAM) online, citing the seriousness of the matter.

The order was passed after the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) submitted a draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to the court. "As part of the future preventive action required to be taken with respect to dissemination of CSEAM content, MeitY has drafted an SOP for the intermediaries for prevention, direction, removal and reporting of CSEAM content to a government portal (Sahyog)," the ministry said.

The SOP has been prepared in consultation with the ministry o...