The Supreme Court on Monday asked Google, Microsoft, Facebook and WhatsApp to provide the number of complaints received from India of any objectionable material posted online on their sites between the period of January 1, 2016 and August 31, 2017.
A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit said the court wanted to know whether the online giants had taken any action on the complaints received from India on materials like videos or pictures of child pornography, rape and gangrape, uploaded on their sites.
The Bench further asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to respond to whether any prosecutions were initiated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act of 2012. The court wanted to know the number of prosecutions initiated under Sections 19 and 21 of the Act between January 1, 2016 to August 31, 2017.
‘Place affidavits’
“We would like the participating companies Google, Google India, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and WhatsApp to place affidavits regarding the number of complaints they have received from India about the objectionable contents concerning child pornography, rape and gangrape for the year and till August 31 and the action that has been taken on it,” the Bench observed.
NGO’s letter
The court was hearing a letter sent to then Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala, along with two rape videos in a pen drive.
The Supreme Court had on its own taken cognisance of the letter about posting of these videos on WhatsApp and had asked the CBI to launch a detailed probe to apprehend the culprits.
The next hearing in the case has been posted for September 18.
