Delhi High Court: In a suit filed to prevent the sharing of a sexually explicit video of a judicial officer, which had been in circulation on the internet since 29-11-2022, the Single Judge Bench of Yashwant Varma, J. ordered the social media platforms to restrain from circulating the sexually explicit video of a judicial officer.
Background
The present suit was filed by plaintiff for issuance of a permanent injunction restraining Google LLC (defendant) from publishing, re-publishing, telecasting, in any manner, a video of 09-03-2022 which was stated to be circulating on social media platforms as well as web portals since 29-11-2022.Further, the plaintiff prayed for disabling users of the services provided by the defendants from sharing or forwarding the video over their platforms.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted that Section 354-C of the Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and Section 67-A of the Information and Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) would be violated if further circulation, sharing, and distribution of video was permitted. The Court also noted that if the video was circulated amongst parties and users of the services provided by the defendants, then it would violate the Legally Acceptable Terms of Use as adopted by the defendants.
The Court opined that “bearing in mind the sexually explicit nature of the contents of that video and considering imminent, grave and irreparable harm that was likely to be caused to the privacy rights of the plaintiff an ad interim ex parte injunction was clearly warranted”.
The Court held that the defendants should take all permissible steps to ensure that the further sharing, distribution, forwarding, or posting of the offending video was restrained.Further, the Court also directed the Union Government to comply with an early communication sent through the Registrar General asking the authorities to take appropriate action for blocking of the video over all ISPs, messaging platforms and media platforms.
The matter next be listed on 09-12-2022.
[AX v. Google LLC, 2022 SCC OnLine Del 4195, decided on 30-11-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: Advocate Ashish Dixit
Advocate Amit Sharma
Advocate Vandana Sachdeva
