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Representing the public interest petitioner - Sabu Mathew, Advocate Sanjay Parikh told the Supreme Court on Friday that the nodal agency, set up by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the in-house mechanisms set up by the search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, are ineffective in removing advertisements found to violate the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 (PC-PNDTA).
As per the complaints received by the nodal agency for violations under the section 22 of the PC-PNDTA, on May 15, Parikh told the court, Google has only blocked the video in their youtube platform, and didn’t block other URLs forwarded by the nodal agency.
He further disclosed that it was specifically stated at that meeting that Google never blocked certain sites and that they were easily accessible by everyone directly by entering the web-site address/URLs.
“This shows that the mechanism is not working effectively. We do not have copies of subsequent review meetings and therefore, cannot comment on the same except pointing out that violations are still continuing”, Parikh stated in the court.
Parikh complained that even after removing the offending advertisements from the search page, Google provides the links on lumendatabase.org through its notification on the bottom of the search page. He further suggested that these links should not be provided as it enables users to access these websites violating Indian law.
The bench headed by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra, and Justices A.M.Khanwilkar and D.Y.Chandrachud, appreciating Parikh’s suggestions, directed serving of its copies on the counsel for the respondents, and posted it for further hearing on December 13.
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