The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave 36 hours to internet service provider giants such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to remove all advertisements pertaining to pre-natal sex determination.
Acting firm against the advertisements related to sex determination that pop up on every search engine website, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy said, “We direct the Union of India to constitute a nodal agency which would give advertisements on TV, radio and in newspapers....That if anybody comes across anything which identify a girl or a boy (at pre-natal stage), it should be brought to the notice of the nodal agency.” On receipt of such information, the companies hosting the search engines have to delete the content within 36 hours and inform the nodal agency, the bench added.
The matter has been fixed for further hearing on February 17 next year. The matter was brought to the attention of the Court by one Sabu Mathew George who pointed out that such advertisements flew in the face of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act 1994 which said that nobody shall propagate (pre-natal sex determination) and if anyone is propagating, it has to be stopped.
During the hearing, the bench expressed concern over the declining sex ratio and said, “Whether one will have a boy or a girl, that kind of information is not necessary in India. The sex ratio is going down here and we are concerned about that.”
“Whatever is prohibited under the Act cannot go through it (websites),” the bench observed, adding, “If anyone comes across anything which offends or has an impact on the sex ratio in India, it shall be removed by the search engines within 36 hours.”
The counsel appearing for search engines submitted that they have taken steps to comply with the provisions of the Act. However, they contended that the matter requires further debate. Regarding the submissions by search engines about access to information,
unless it is not prohibited under the Act, the bench said this issue has to be debated upon during further hearing.