A division bench of the High Court comprising acting chief justice PC Ghose and justice Vilas V Afzulpurkar on Monday directed the authorities concerned to get instructions on a public interest petition seeking a ban on the controversial US-made film, “Innocence of Muslims”.
The matter was adjourned to October 12 for hearing. Local businessman Mohammed Haji filed the petition against the Broadcasting Corporation of India and the Union ministry of information and technology for their failure to stop exhibition of Innocence of Muslims, which is also known as Muhammed Movie, trailer and real life of Muhammed, on Internet or in any other form. Failure of the authorities concerned to stop the film’s exhibition led to massive and violent protests all over the world. The film is not only anti-Islamic and blasphemous, but also shows the hidden motive of tarnishing the image of Islam and hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslim community. He impleaded Google Inc. as a party to the petition.
The petitioner’s counsel contended that the display of the video clip on the Internet is in gross violation of Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and requested the court to direct Google Inc. to remove the film from the web domain of YouTube.