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Court puts off hearing on Google, Facebook pleas
Thursday January 19, 2012 04:59:56 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: The Delhi
High Court Thursday adjourned the hearing on petitions of Google
India and Facebook India challenging a trial court's order to
prosecute them for allegedly hosting objectionable content.
"The matter is likely to be taken up Feb 2 or Feb 3," said Justice
Suresh Kait.
Google India and Facebook India earlier told the high court that
it was impossible for them to control content with billions of
people accessing the websites.
Petitioner Vinay Rai requested the trial court to remove
objectionable contents from 21 websites. Among these, 12 websites
are of foreign-based companies.
Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar summoned the accused
companies to face trial for allegedly committing the offence
punishable under the Indian Penal Code sections 292 (sale of
obscene books and material and 293 (sale of obscene objects to
young person).
The trial court observed that the material submitted by the
complainant contained obscene pictures and derogatory articles
pertaining to various Hindu deities, Prophet Mohammad and Jesus
Christ.
Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Google India,
during the last hearing in the high court said that the summons
issued to social networking sites by a metropolitan magistrate
showed complete lack of understanding about how the online system
worked.
He said the issue was related to the freedom of speech.
"The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech
and expression, and suppressing it was not possible as the right
to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a
totalitarian regime like China," he said.
Arguing that Google India and Google Inc. were different entities,
he said: "It has nothing to do with Google India directly or
indirectly, I am not responsible for it."
He submitted that the petitioner company had no control over
websites where the objectionable material was posted.
"I am only a search engine, the offending materials of websites
have nothing to do with me," he said.
"Google India is neither a search engine nor a web hosting site
and was a distinct legal entity from its US-based holding company
Google Inc., a search engine," he added.
Advocate Hariharan, appearing for complainant Vinay Rai, said that
Google Inc. and Google India were the same.
He said they (Google India) said they were only concerned with
marketing but their documents said that they carried on business
of production and development of internet programme and software
programme. Business of advertisement was only a small part.
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