HC asks Google, Youtube, Centre to take steps to remove woman's objectionable photos from internet

Delhi High Court has asked the Google, Youtube, Central government and the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police Union to take necessary steps to remove the sites and links, carrying objectionable photos and videos of a woman from the internet.

New Delhi:The Delhi High Court has asked the Google, Youtube, Central government and the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police Union to take necessary steps to remove the sites and links, carrying objectionable photos and videos of a woman from the internet.

Justice Subramonium Prasad on September 7 issued the directions while examining a petition of a woman seeking court directions to the respondents to block any nude, sexually explicit or morphed photos of her showing in their websites. Petitioner woman also sought directions to Centre through its concerned ministry to block websites operating as pornographic sites under pseudo names.

The bench said, “It is made clear that this is not an adversarial litigation and it is expected that from respondents Google LLC, YouTube, Union of India and the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police to take necessary steps to remove the sites and links, carrying objectionable photos and videos of the petitioner, from the internet before the next date of hearing, which is September 16, 2021.”

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The bench further stated that in order to expedite the process of removing the links and sites from the internet, the Delhi Police through Cyber Cell is being impleaded in the array of parties.

Let the Delhi Police through Cyber Cell be impleaded in the array of parties before the next date of hearing, the court said.

Meanwhile, advocate Anurag Ahluwalia, counsel appearing for the Centre assures the court that the concerned authority will take necessary steps for removal of the sites and links from the internet carrying objectionable photographs and videos of the petitioner.

Earlier, the court held that posting photographs in a pornographic site prima facie amounts to an offence under the IT Act. The Delhi High Court had also laid down guidelines to be followed by courts while dealing with cases related to the removal of objectionable content from the internet to ensure access to such offensive material is restricted at the earliest and it is not re-posted anywhere else by others.

ANI