SC leaves it to government to regulate ads on pre-natal sex tests on internet

Nine years after it took upon itself the task of regulating ads and content relating to sex-determination tests banned under local law, the Supreme Court on Wednesday washed its hands of the matter and left it to the government to take care of such issues in consultation with the search engines.

“We don’t have the expertise to deal with this,” said Justice AM Khanwilkar, part of a three-member bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justice DY Chandrachud as well.

The case had begun in 2008, when activist Sabu George Mathew filed a public interest litigation (PIL) to get the search engines to abide by local law which bans such tests to arrest the falling sex ratio in the country. The government had then set up a nodal body to act as the interface with the search engines on such complaints.


Almost a decade later after passing umpteen orders in which the court warned the engines that they should either follow local law or shut shop, the court closed this chapter on Wednesday, saying it could not pass “unworkable” orders.

The court left the task to the government to deal with through the nodal agency in consultation with the search engines and the petitioner’s lawyer, Sanjay Parikh.

The search engines said in court on Wednesday that there had not been a single instance in which they had not taken down any ad if anyone complained about it. The court had initially struck a strident line, threatening the search engines to crack down both on ads and content relating to such tests.

The government had then backed the court’s line. However, on Wednesday, the government through Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand backed their stand that such content could not be regulated because of technical reasons.