The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said that photographs breaching the privacy of women should not be posted on public platforms as women are put on a higher pedestal. The court made the remarks while hearing expelled AIADMK leader and then Rajya Sabha Member Sasikala Pushpa seeking to restrain Facebook India, Google India, YouTube, and Twitter India from publishing or showing any "derogatory" photographs of her.
With these observations, a Division Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh, suggested the social media sites to remove the objectionable materials from their platforms.
Representing Facebook, Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, told the court it is only an intermediary and nothing to do with uploading of any content. He added that, however, they have a system to check and remove the objectionable content and are ready to abide by any directions given by the court.
Advancing arguments for Google and YouTube Senior advocate Arun Kathpalia also repeated that they were also intermediaries and have power to only disable the URLs.
After hearing the arguments, the bench slated the matter for further hearing on July 8 asking the parties to discuss over the issues related to objectionable material and how to remove them.
The bench was hearing Sasikala Pushpa's appeal challenging single-judge bench order. On June 3, a single-judge bench of Delhi High Court dismissed the plea of Sasikala Pushpa seeking to restrain Facebook India, Google India, YouTube, and Twitter India from publishing or showing any "derogatory" photographs of her, stating that the "electorate certainly has a right to know the behind closed doors meets of politicians".
Sasikala filed a petition on September 29, 2016, against Facebook, Google and YouTube for seeking permanent injunction restraining from publishing, broadcasting, distributing or disseminating in any form whatsoever any defamatory material --including the purported photographs, video and audio messages.
( With inputs from ANI )