SC refuses urgent listing of plea against HC order asking Centre to ban TikTok app

The Supreme Court has refused the urgent listing of the plea challenging the High court order to the Centre, directing to ban the famous TikTok app.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused urgent listing of a plea challenging the recent Madras High Court order directing the Centre to ban the 'TikTok' app over concerns about access to pornographic content through it.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said the plea will come up for hearing in due course of time.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Chinese company ByteDance, said that there are over billion download of the app and the Madurai bench of Madras High Court has passed an ex-parte order.

"No urgent listing. The matter will come up in due course of time," the bench said.

The Madurai bench of Madras High Court on April 3, had directed the Centre to ban mobile application 'TikTok' as it voiced concern over the "pornographic and inappropriate contents" being made available through such apps.

It directed the media not to telecast video clips made with TikTok. The app allows users to create short videos and then share them.

It had asked the government if it would enact a statute on the line of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act in the US and posted the matter for further hearing on April 16.

The high court had passed the interim order Wednesday on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition which sought to ban TikTok app on ground that it allegedly contained contents that "degraded culture and encouraged pornography".

Even after the havoc caused by Blue whale online game, which reportedly led to suicides by several people, officials had not learnt that they should be alert to these types of problems, the high court had said.

Only when the officials and policy makers were able to act on the problems of society, decision could be taken to prevent these kind of apps, it had said.

Voicing concern, the court has said that it was evident from media reports that pornography and inappropriate content were made available through such mobile applications.