Delhi HC notice to Google, FB, Twitter

A big question is about, who is the owner of Internet and the answer is no one unfortunately and secondly if you think of the Internet as a unified, single entity, then no one owns it. There are organizations that determine the Internet's structure and how it works, but they don't have any ownership over the Internet itself. No government can lay claim to owning the Internet, nor can any company but there are many hundreds of root servers at over 130 physical locations in many different countries. There are twelve organisations responsible for the overall coordination of the management of these servers.

The recent news on revealing the identity of Kathua minor rape victim,where India has been branded, the Delhi High Court has issue notice to Internet giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Bing by taking a strong on it. Says, you have done a great disservice to the nation. It is an injustice to the nation and to the victim’s family. This kind of publication is not permissible,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Hari Shankar was quoted.

The Bench also issued notices to the companies after their Indian subsidiaries said they were not the concerned entity to reply to the court’s notice on the issue. The question comes why the spokes persons are not available to respond,The next question comes if the leadership is not available to respond then who they are operating the business in India. This need to be answered,where the integrity of the country is on stake. Many Internet platforms and social networking sites were extensively displaying the photographs and name of the victim. They cannot absolve themselves for such activities, the bench noted. There are long-term repercussions to the victim’s family.

Under Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code, anyone who divulges the identity of a victim of sexual violence and rape could be sent to a minimum of two years imprisonment. A report says, earlier on April 18, the court had rapped media houses for its manner of reporting the case, which according to the bench was in “absolute violation of the specific provision of law disrespecting the privacy of the victim, which is required to be maintained in respect of the identity of a victim and the section 23 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act lays down the procedure for the media to report cases of sexual offences against child victims.

Delhi High Court asked media houses responsible to deposit Rs 10 lakh as penalty towards the State’s rape victims compensation funds. It sought the response from 12 media houses- The Times of India, The Hindu, The Statesman, The Pioneer, The Navbharat Times, NDTV, Firstpost, The Week, The Republic TV, The Deccan Chronicle, India TV and The Indian Express. The court has posted the case for further hearing on May 29.