Right to access Internet cannot be curtailed, says SC
The Supreme Court has clarified that a general prohibition on all
online content about pre-natal sex determination will curtail the fundamental right to know of a genuine information-seeker. The clarification came based on a petition demanding for strict
adherence by search engines to Section 22.
What section 22 says?
Section 22 is about prohibition of advertisement relating to pre-natal
determination of sex.
What has the Court said?
The court held that the prohibition should kick in only if the
content found online is violative of Section 22 under the Pre-conception and
Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) (PCPNDT) Act of
1994.
Observations made by the court:
Citizens have the right to access the Internet to gain
information, wisdom and knowledge and their right cannot be curtailed unless it
encroaches into the boundary of illegality.
- Calling the Internet a “virtual world” and a “world which is invisible in a way,” the Supreme Court observed that the fundamental right of expression includes “the right to be informed and the right to know and the feeling of protection of expansive connectivity” the Internet offers on the click of a button.
Assurance by Internet search engines:
The three Internet search engines — Microsoft, Google India and
Yahoo! India — gave their assurances to the Supreme Court that they would
neither advertise nor sponsor advertisements violative of the PNPCDT Act. The
trio said they had already appointed ‘in-house’ experts to spot illegal
content.
- Nodal
officers have already been appointed at State levels to keep tabs on the
Net for offensive material contravening Section 22 of the Act.
- In case the nodal officers detect illegal online content, they would communicate with the search engine’s experts, which would take it off within the next 36 hours of receiving the information. These experts would then follow it up by providing the nodal officers concerned with an action taken report.
