Court gets go-ahead to pull up 21 social networking sites

The Delhi Court has now officially received a go-ahead from the Centre, indicating that Facebook, Twitter, Google, among other social networking sites, totaling up to 21 can be prosecuted. Late last month, reports first surfaced confirming that 21 social networking sites operational in the country had come under the government scanner after the content posted on them seemed threatening to - peace between communities, national integration, among others. Now, reports confirm that the Centre has gathered enough evidence to justifiably prosecute Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, among others.

Prosecution inevitible (Image source: Getty Images)

In its 2-page report that it placed before Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar, the Centre (Ministry of External Affairs) stated, "The sanctioning authority has personally gone through the entire records and materials produced before him and after considering and examining the same, he is satisfied that there is sufficient material to proceed against the accused persons under section 153-A, 153-B and 295-A of the IPC." The Court had asked the MEA ministry to produce summons to ten foreign-based companies. In our earlier report, we had mentioned that the Court had accused these 21 sites, under the following sections of the IPC - section 292 (sale of obscene books etc), 293 (sale of obscene objects to young person etc) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. However, it still could not summon them as they did not have a prior sanction from the Centre or the state government.

Justifying the prosecution, the court stated, "The documents and contents therein are in the nature to instigate enimity between different groups on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language and doing acts prejudicial to the maintainance of harmony"

PTI