Supreme Court orders to form panel to restrain child porn

As the Centre and internet giants expressed its inability to evolve mechanism to stop uploading of offending videos of rape and child pornography, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed top technocrats of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook, some of whom are residing in foreign countries, to come to India and participate in brain storming meeting for 15 days to find out solution to deal with the problem. A bench consisting of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit has been examining the various legal and technical facets of the online menace of child pornography and rape videos being uploaded and circulated through social networking sites for over a year. They have decided to hold a high level committee headed by additional secretary of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to hold a meeting with representatives of multinational companies from April 5 to 20. The bench turned down the plea of Facebook and Google which contended that their representative would not be able to attend meeting for all 15 days and they should be allowed to participate through video-conferencing. & quot Do not treat India as your colony. If you are serious about the problem then ask your representative to come to India and participate in meeting for 15 days. You must not even make such request. Ensure their uninterrupted presence in the meeting,& quot the bench said. All the four companies furnished names of their representatives who will participate in the meeting of the committee which would also comprise of two senior officials of home ministry and advocate Aprana Bhatt. The court passed the order on a petition filed by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala asking the court to direct the search engines and social networking sites not to allow uploading of offensive video on their platforms. The court directed that all the discussions and deliberations between government and representative of companies would remain confidential and directed its chairman to submit a report in sealed envelope before the bench and posted the case for further hearing to April 24. Advocate Aparna Bhatt, appearing for the NGO, contended that it was primarily the responsibility of the search engines to ensure that such offensive video were not uploaded but the companies told the bench it was not technologically possible to examine all videos before they are uploaded as millions of video uploaded every day. In this case, the court had taken suo motu cognizance on the basis of a letter written to Chief Justice of India by Prajwala, bringing to notice the rape videos being widely circulated on Whatsaap and had directed the CBI to probe in to the cases and to catch hold of culprits committing rapes and sharing the video through the social networking site. The Centre had earlier expressed its inability to trace the source of objectionable video if it is uploaded through mobile phones and shared through 'Whatsaap'.

It is commendable decision of the bench to hold a comprehensive meeting including all the website representatives and the lawyers. It is very important to have a detailed deliberation over the matter in order to reach the solution of the cause. Until everyone comes out about the limitation and drawbacks on their part, it will be difficult to counter the hindrances on the path. The meetings shall sure have huge impact on the entire scenario.