In a decisive blow to the peddlers of digital obscenity, the Government of India has ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms, among them notorious names like ULLU and ALTBalaji (now ALTT), for streaming pornographic and vulgar content in violation of Indian laws.
This sweeping action, which includes the removal of 26 websites and 14 mobile apps from Google Play Store and Apple App Store, is the culmination of a years-long public movement spearheaded by Gems of Bollywood, a social media platform founded by data scientist Sanjeev Newar and journalist-activist Swati Goel Sharma, and Save Culture Save Bharat founded by ex-Central Information Commissioner Uday Mahurkar.
The bans were enforced under a battery of legal provisions: Sections 67 and 67A of the IT Act, the IT Rules (2021), Section 294 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (2023), and the Indecent Representation of Women Act (1986).
These provisions criminalise sexually explicit content, especially that which targets vulnerable audiences or uses sacred symbols and family institutions to mock Indian culture.
Chronology: Gems of Bollywood exposes obscene OTT content
The first wave of resistance began not in Parliament, but on X (formerly Twitter). In 2021, Gems of Bollywood began exposing disturbing scenes from Indian OTT shows – clips that featured simulated incest, sexual abuse within Hindu family contexts, and the playing of Hindu devotional songs like ‘Aarti’ during sex scenes.
A clip from ALTBalaji’s XXX Season 2 was among the first to go viral and triggered public outrage. That scene showed explicit sexual scenes between a man with his sister bhabhi, mother and grandmother respectively.
Gems of Bollywood‘s work revealed how OTT platforms were smuggling porn under the guise of entertainment, often with deliberate attacks on Hindu symbols.
Official grievance redressal system for OTTs explored. Lesson – It wasn’t enough
Not content with social media outrage, Sanjeev Newar escalated the complaint through the official three-tier OTT grievance redressal mechanism.
• Level 1: ALTBalaji bizarrely claimed that incest between mother, grandmother, sister-in-law and sister wasn’t problematic because it was “a dream sequence.”
• Level 2: Newar’s complaint faced a committee stacked with entertainment insiders but got no reply for weeks.
• Level 3: His appeal to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting was met with silence for weeks.
However, after two months of relentless follow-ups, the Grievance Redressal Board ruled in favour of Sanjeev Newar. Then, quietly, the scene was removed from the series. But the process proved that the mechanism wasn’t enough to deal with the menace.
Save Culture Save Bharat makes it burning issue
Uday Mahurkar’s Save Culture Save Bharat (SCSB) soon took up the issue and relentlessly campaigned about it across ministries and states.
In 2023, SCSB and Gems of Bollywood held a press conference at the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library in New Delhi, releasing a white paper on OTT obscenity.
“I do not doubt that India will become a superpower one day. I have faith that we will. But culturally, are we going to be paupers?”, said Mahurkar in a thundering speech.
At this event, the same XXX Season 2 clip was screened, and several journalists demanded it be stopped due to its graphic nature – ironically proving the campaign’s point.
Mahurkar later held a series of such public awareness events.
Coalition becomes bigger
The momentum grew when Hindu Janajagruti Samiti joined the cause. In February 2024, a public talk in Mumbai, addressed by Swati Goel Sharma, Uday Mahurkar and Ramesh Shinde, called for legal amendments. Mahurkar demanded:
• Classification of such content as anti-national activity
• Making OTT obscenity a cognizable and non-bailable offence
• Aadhaar-linked biometric age-gating
• A mandatory Code of Ethics for OTT platforms
They also cited real-life criminal cases where rapists had been influenced by pornographic content available freely online.
Priyank Kanoongo and Uday Mahurkar intervene in ULLU IPO
The ongoing crackdown on OTT obscenity owes much to interventions during ULLU’s IPO filings by Mahurkar and Priyank Kanoongo, former Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
Acting on complaints that the ULLU app contained “extremely obscene and objectionable” content targeting even schoolchildren, Kanoongo formally urged MeitY and Google to act, citing the platform’s easy accessibility and lack of KYC safeguards.
Simultaneously, Mahurkar alerted SEBI and BSE that ULLU’s IPO filings were misleading, hiding criminal cases against promoter Vibhu Agarwal. Mahurkar also flagged multiple court cases related to ULLU’s “sexually perverted” content.
Their actions forced SEBI, MeitY, and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to launch formal probes into ULLU, ultimately derailing its ₹160-crore IPO.
In these and subsequent complaints, eminent advocates Vineet Jindal, Parth yadav, Mani Munjal, Amita Sachdeva, Makarand Adkar, and Mukesh Mishra made significant contributions.
The Legal Battle
In April 2025, Sanjeev Newar, Swati Goel Sharma and Uday Mahurkar, among other eminent social activists, filed a petition in the Supreme Court through eminent advocates Hari Shankar Jain and Vishnu Jain. The court took note and issued notices to the Centre, OTT platforms and intermediaries.
Simultaneously, 108 lawyers wrote to the President demanding the revocation of Ekta Kapoor’s Padma Shri for normalising incest and vulgarity. Kapoor is the founder of ALTBalaji.
All this built up to July 25, 2025, when the Government finally acted.
