The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to suggest how to curb advertisements hosted by websites soliciting sex selection tests which are prohibited under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act.
Issuing a notice to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to suggest what possible technical tools could be employed to ensure strict enforcement of the Act, the Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and UU lalit said, “In our considered opinion, an effort has to be made to see that nothing contrary to laws of this country is advertised or shown on these websites.”
The court sought assistance of Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar on December 15, when the matter will be taken up for hearing. The PIl petitioner Sabu Mathew George informed the court that in other countries objectionable content was blocked either by entering into agreements with content providers or by using sophisticated technical tools.
Counsels for search engines Yahoo, Google, etc argued that they had no control on advertisements that were hosted by websites and search engines only provided a corridor to reach them. But the court was flustered on seeing an affidavit filed by the Centre on August 16, 2010 taking a similar stand. The affidavit suggested that sex selection may be a crime in India but was not so elsewhere and the Internet served the interest of citizens worldwide.
The Bench held, “We do not appreciate the manner in which the stand is expressed in the affidavit…You can’t put forth your individual perception when we have to go by law. The official stand should be that we will support any effort to enforce law.”
The court took serious note of the petition after the petitioner informed the court that prevalence of such advertisements openly soliciting sex selection clinics was a grave threat to the safety and security of girl children, adversely altering their sex ratio in the country.