The Supreme Court on Monday asked internet majors Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook for their responses to a petition for cracking down on cybercrimes, especially the sharing on social media of sexual-offence videos.
A Bench of Justices M.B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit sought their replies by January 9 to the petition by the Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala, represented by advocate Aparna Bhatt. Ms. Bhatt said the internet companies should also be heard and made to take steps against sexually offending materials finding their way to their online domains.
Additional Solicitor-General Maninder Singh, representing the Centre, said a debate to make public the names of sexual offenders was under way in India and abroad, and whatever decision was taken would be implemented. To this, the Bench said that if the names of offenders were to be made public, it should be done only after conviction, not just after the case was lodged. “It will tarnish the image of a person, if he is acquitted in a sexual offence case,” it said.
The Bench also directed that if the State police found nothing against a person after probing a case of sexual offence, the CBI would not interrogate that person on the cybercrime aspect of the offence.
The court, however, expressed alarm at the data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showing a steep rise in the cases of sexual violence against children.
The court was hearing a letter sent to the then Chief Justice of India, H.L. Dattu, by Prajwala, along with two rape videos, in a pen drive. It had taken suo motu note of the letter on the posting of these videos on WhatsApp and asked the CBI to launch a probe to arrest the culprits.
