A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday asked the State government to inform the court about the steps taken to contain the spread of Nipah virus in the State.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice Antony Dominic observed that the outbreak of the Nipah virus was a matter of serious concern. The court asked government counsel to inform the court about the number of persons so far died due to the virus attack.
The court passed the directives when a petition filed by Arjun P.K. and Ajay Jishnu, two students of the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS), Kochi, seeking a directive to take the video footage containing misleading information about the Nipah virus off the social media and YouTube came up for hearing.
The court also asked the Centre to inform it about the action taken on the e-mail sent to the Information Technology Department by the students seeking steps to block the misleading videos. According to the students, misleading videos and online content had been uploaded by two quacks masquerading as medical experts, providing misinformation about the virus. The measures taken by the governments and the doctors were hampered and made ineffective because of their actions.
The petitioner said Mohanan Vaidyan of Cherthala and Jacob Vadakanchery of Kochi had posted on their Facebook, a social networking site, in a grossly irresponsible manner , sending a misleading message that there was no existence of the Nipah virus. They had termed it a false alarm by the Health Department for the benefits of the pharma companies. They had urged the people through the videos to defy the advisories of the Health Department. Their acts would only result in further spread of the disease. They did this with a view to promoting their own cures and remedies for the virus infection.
Their claims were ludicrous and did not have any scientific basis. By posting the videos, they had discredited the efforts taken by the medical team to contain the spread of the virus. They were advocating unscientific remedies for the malady in violation of the Drugs and Magical Remdies(Objectionable Advertisements) Act. In fact, criminal cases had been registered against them for uploading the videos.
Mr. Mohanan had later posted another video tendering apology for making the post. However, their videos had already been shared by more than nine lakh viewers. These misinformation only endangered the lives of people, and could expose them to more dangers. Therefore, blocking of these videos on the YouTube and Facebook was highly necessary.
The petitioners sought a directive to the Centre to invoke the emergency powers under Rule 9(2) of the Information Technology(Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009 read with section 69A(1) of the Information Technology Act for removing and blocking all the videos on the Nipah virus posted by these persons from their Facebook and also from YouTube.
