CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the state police to work together to block all links that host the non-consensual intimate pictures and videos of a woman advocate.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh issued the direction when the petition filed by the advocate came up for hearing.
Counsel for the petitioner submitted that non-consensual intimate pictures have been hosted on four more video links and an internet link is being shared again now. He noted these contents cannot be accessed in Mumbai and Delhi, but in Chennai they are very much accessible.
Expressing concern about these contents resurfacing despite the action to block video links, the judge wanted the union ministry and the TN DGP to take combined action.
“All the four video links must be blocked and it must be ensured that none of the video links resurface. This court expects cooperation between the centre and the state in this regard,” the judge said in the order.
Justice Venkatesh said, “Good things disappear sooner from the internet but bad things like these videos are there for a longer time.”
He ordered the authorities concerned of both the centre and the state to take action to block all the video links and the internet link within two weeks and adjourned the hearing to September 11.
The judge had directed the centre to frame an SOP for dealing with hosting of non-consensual intimate images on the internet, and subsequently, the centre constituted an expert committee to discuss and devise the mechanism.