The Delhi High Court has directed Google, YouTube, Cyber Cell of Delhi Police and the Central Government to take necessary steps to remove the sites and links, carrying objectionable photos and videos of a woman.
A Single-Judge Bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad passed the order on September 7, while hearing the plea of an aggrieved woman seeking:
i. Direction to block the sites, which under pseudo names are operating as pornographic sites.
ii. Direction to delink/de-tag/de-reference/deindex the name of petitioner from respective search engines, providing access to adult or pornographic sites.
iii. Direction to block any nude or sexually explicit or morphed photos of petitioner appearing on their sites respectively.
iv. Direction to register an FIR on the complaint of the petitioner made to Lajpat Nagar Police Station, New Delhi and to conduct an expeditious investigation in the matter.
v. Direction to YouTube, to block channels in the name of the petitioner.
vi. Direction to seize CCTV footage of Union bank of India, Lajpat Nagar Brach, New Delhi as the same would corroborate the extortion.
Not an adversarial litigation: Delhi High Court
The Bench directed Advocate Sanjeev Mahajan, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, to implead the accused, further directing the concerned SHO to assist Advocate Mahajan in serving the accused. Justice Prasad said, “It is made clear that this is not an adversarial litigation.” The bench fixed the next date of hearing on September 16.
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Advocate Mamta Jha, appearing on behalf of Google and YouTube, submitted that a communication had been given to Advocate Sanjeev Mahajan (for petitioner), that URLs mentioned by him in the writ petition are incomplete and several of the URLs are not indexed with Google. She further submitted that all the URLs, which are with YouTube, have been removed and 10 channels have already been blocked so far.
Advocate Mahajan disputed the submissions of Advocate Jha, on behalf of Google and YouTube.
Advocate Madhav Khosla, appearing on behalf of Microsoft India Pvt Ltd, submitted that Microsoft India Pvt Ltd is not a search engine and it only deals in sales and marketing of Microsoft Softwares. He further stated that Microsoft Inc is the correct party.