Yahoo India moves court over summons

Jan 21, 2012 - Ridhima Malhotra |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

Yahoo India Pvt Ltd on Friday moved the Delhi high court seeking quashing of the summons issued to it by a lower court for allegedly webcasting objectionable content, days after Facebook and Google sought relief from the high court for the same.

Justice Suresh Kait issued notice to the Delhi police on the plea of Yahoo India and decided to hear the matter on February 10.
Senior advocate Arvind Nigam, appearing for Yahoo India, said, “Summons were issued without application of mind by the trial court as there was no material against my client.”
He argued that the complaint and the magistrate’s order have dealt with alleged objectionable material retrieved from various websites including Zombie, Orkut, YouTube, Facebook, Blogspot but none of them pertained to Yahoo.
“No objectionable material has been downloaded from Yahoo India which forms part of the case in which 20 other websites have also been summoned. It is not a social networking site like others in the case. It only provides email and chat services. Moreover, no objectionable material has been attributed to Yahoo! and hence its case is different from others,” Mr Nigam said.
Google India Pvt Ltd and Facebook India Online had earlier told the high court that blocking the websites for hosting content which may appear objectionable to some users was not possible as it would infringe the right to freedom of expression of individuals.
A lower court had on December 23 issued summons to 21 websites for allegedly committing offences of criminal conspiracy, sale of obscene books and obscene objects to young persons. The Central government had earlier filed before the lower court a report which stated that there was sufficient material to proceed against 21 websites for alleged offences of promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration.

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