Intermediaries should remove and disable access to content of obscene material uploaded on websites within 24 hours of receipt of Court order
Direction should be issued by the court to search engines to make offending content non-searchable by 'de-indexing' and 'de- referencing' offending content in their listed search results, including de-indexing and de-referencing all concerned web-pages, sub-pages or sub-directories on which offending content is found.
In the present case, the petitioner's photographs and images, though not in themselves obscene or offensive, were taken from her Facebook and Instagram accounts without her consent and were uploaded on a pornographic website, adding derogatory captions to them.
If intermediaries failed in their duties he is liable to lose exemption from liability available to it under S.79(1) of the IT Act. Because Exemption from liability of intermediary is not unqualified or unconditional. If intermediary fails to fulfil conditionalities and obligations cast upon it exemption is liable to be forfeited.
The court may issue a direction to the website or online platform on which the offending content is hosted, to remove such content from the website or online platform, forthwith and in any event within 24 hours of receipt of the court order. A direction should also be issued to the website or online platform to preserve all information and associated records relating to the offending content. A Directions should also be issued to the concerned law enforcement agency, to obtain from the concerned website or online platform all information and associated records, including all unique identifiers relating to the offending content. Also, the court must direct the aggrieved party to furnish to the law enforcement agency all available information that the aggrieved party possesses relating to the offending content. This has been provided in the rules since, evidently, it affords a more fair and just balance between the irreparable harm that may be caused by retaining offending content on the world-wide-web and the right of another person to seek reinstatement of the content by challenging its removal. The court may also direct the aggrieved party to make a complaint on the National Cyber-Crime Reporting Portal, to initiate the process provided for grievance redressal on that portal.
Appearing counsel/s : Mr. Sarthak Maggon, Mr. Ajay Digpaul, Mr. Kamal R. Digpaul, Ms. Gayatri Virmani, Mr. Meet Malhotra, Mr. Aditya Vaibhav Singh, Mr. Parag P Tripathi, Mr. Tejas Karia, Mr. Ajit Warrier, Mr. Gauhar Mirza, Mr. Shyamal Anand, Mr. Thejesh Rajendran, Ms. Malikah Mehra and Ms. Mishika Bajpai, Mr. Sajan Poovayya, Senior Advocate with Ms. Mamta R. Jha, Ms. Shruttima Ehersa, , Mr. Pratibhanu, , Ms. Raksha,and Mr. Sharan
