The Delhi High Court on Friday set aside an order summoning Yahoo India on a private complaint accusing it of hosting objectionable content. Justice Suresh Kait accepted the portal's argument that no case was made out against it.
Earlier counsel said the trial court had not applied its mind while summoning the portal as there was no material against it. The Metropolitan Magistrate had dealt only with allegedly objectionable contents which were retrieved from other websites such as Orkut, YouTube, Facebook and Blogspot. It was not the complainant's case that objectionable contents had been downloaded from Yahoo, counsel said. Furthermore, Yahoo's case was different from that of the 20 other accused websites summoned by the trial court in that it was not a social networking site; it provided only email and chat services.
On December 23 last, the lower court, on a complaint filed by journalist Vinay Rai, summoned the 21 websites for alleged criminal conspiracy and sale of obscene books and objects to young persons.
The Centre on January 13 this year granted sanction for prosecution of the websites.
