The Supreme Court has slapped a cost of ₹1 lakh each on Google and Facebook for failing to file their replies to the steps taken by them to block videos of sexual offences on social sites.
A Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U.U. Lalit noted that despite its specific order to Yahoo, Facebook Ireland, Facebook India, Google India, Google Inc, Microsoft and WhatsApp, they have not filed any document to inform it about the progress made.
The court directed them to file an affidavit before June 15 spelling out the measures taken by them to curb such videos and asked its Registry to keep the amount in a fixed deposit for a short term.
“In our order dated April 16, we had required the parties before us to let us know the status of progress made pursuant to the recommendations accepted by these entities as mentioned in the Report of the Committee. None of these entities has filed anything to show us the progress nor any of these entities is ready with any response pursuant to our aforesaid order,” the Bench said.
Portal launch
The Central government informed the court that the launch of the beta version of an online cyber crime reporting portal has been given up and now the portal is in its final form and it will be launched on or before July 15.
“With regard to Portal Integration with Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems, it is stated that this is likely to take about two months’ time and the Ministry of Home Affairs is coordinating with the States and the Union Territories in this regard. “With regard to Institutional Mechanism at Central Level, it is stated that there is some dialogue between the States and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and other Ministries in this regard. It is further stated that all these three activities will be completed on or before July 15,” the Bench said.
The court also said that “more than sufficient time” had been taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs to complete these tasks and directed it to complete the exercise by June 30.
