SC Slaps Fine of 1 Lac Each on Google, Facebook and WhatsApp

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May 22, 2018

In the case, the Apex Court had taken suo-motu cognizance of a letter addressed to Chief Justice of India by Prajwala, an organization. The Court on reading of the letter was of the opinion that the issue enumerated therein is of great public importance, an accordingly a Petition was registered by the Court on the basis of the contents of the letter.

The letter narrated about two videos which showcased incidents of rape and gang rape of young girl and woman, the incidents were video recorded and were disseminated through WhatsApp. Thus, apprising the Supreme Court of such heinous crimes, the organization prayed the Chief Justice to adopt mechanism that would curb such incidents particularly recording and then distributing such video recordings.

In view of the aforesaid, the Supreme Court constituted a Committee to advise the Court on the feasibility of ensuring that videos depicting rape, gang rape and child pornography are not available for circulation and to protect the identity and reputation of the victims and also because circulation of such videos cannot be in public interest at all. Accordingly the Committee prepared a comprehensive report entailing the recommendations.

The Apex Court had thus directed the parties including Yahoo, Facebook Ireland, Facebook India, Google India, Google Inc., Microsoft and WhatsApp to submit status of progress made pursuant to the recommendations accepted by these entities as mentioned in the Report of the Committee.

The Court however noted that inspite of their order on April 16, the entities had not filed anything to show the progress nor were they ready with any response. The Supreme Court has now directed the entities to file an affidavit before 15th June, 2018 reporting of the status of the progress made. Additionally, the Apex Court has directed that the Registry will accept the affidavit filed by these entities along with costs of Rs.1 lac each