NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought the Centre’s response on a petition challenging blocking of a website hosting a “dowry calculator”, which according to its owner was created to satirise the practice of taking and giving dowry.
A notice was issued to the ministries of electronics and information technology, women and child development, and communication, seeking their stand on the website owner’s petition, which claimed the site was blocked by government in September last year without giving him a hearing.
The petitioner has sought quashing of the action and directions to restore access to it.
Tanul Thakur said his site ‘Dowry calculator’, was launched in 2011 “as a satirical comment on the existing state of dowry demand in India”.
The petition claimed that the website was designed as an online form that visitors could fill up with options from drop-down menus, on social, educational and personal characteristics of a groom, to arrive at a “fictional dowry amount” that he could attract.
Thakur said his site functioned from May 2011 to May 2018, when a politician criticised his website on social media and called on the government to take action. In September 2018, access to the site was blocked.