NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to a plea seeking steps to curb the sharing of sexual harassment videos online.
A bench of Justices M B Lokur and U U Lalit issued notices to these internet majors and sought their reply on the plea by January 9. As many as 11,592 cases of cyber crime were reported across India in 2015 as per National Crimes Records Bureau.
The NGO Prajwala, the petitioner, told the bench that it was now a common trend that rape videos were shot and posted on social networking sites and the internet companies should take steps to curb such cybercrimes.
Additional Solicitor-General Maninder Singh told the bench that the home ministry and the CBI, which is the nodal agency for cybercrimes, are mulling over making public sexual offenders’ names. The bench responded stating that if sexual offenders’ names are to be made public then it should be done only after courts convict the accused, not just after the case is lodged as it will tarnish the image of a person if he is acquitted eventually.
The bench also directed that if police found nothing against a person after probing a sexual offence case, then the CBI wouldn’t interrogate that person with regard to the cybercrime aspect related to the offence. It also directed the Centre to include steps to curb sexual violence against children in the list of measures to be taken for curbing crime against women.
The court was hearing a letter sent to then Chief Justice of India H L Dattu along with a pen drive containing two rape videos that were circulated on WhatsApp. The court then asked the CBI to launch a probe to nab the culprits.