Supreme Court seeks steps to stop sex-determination contents on websites

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday sharply criticised the central government for expressing “helplessness” in checking advertisements and links to gender selection sites available on search engines and tools such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search.

A two-judge bench, comprising justices Dipak Misra and UU Lalit, was dealing with a PIL filed by Sabu Mathew George, which sought court intervention to get the government to crack down on advertisement of sex-determination kits, tools and clinics on these sites., The PIL alleged, sex-determination ads and links were freely available on the search engines, defeating the very purpose of the law.

“The information published on the websites is generally aimed at wider, worldwide dissemination and caters to the needs of many countries and may not be for Indian citizens,” the government had said in 2010. The Centre had also expressed inability to filter or block such information citing technological limitations. This drew the court’s ire.

“What is this man trying to tell us? He is giving us a theory. He can’t give us his individual perception. We don’t appreciate the manner in which this stand has been expressed,” Misra said. “Is this the official stand? The government must support its own law,” Lalit said. “An effort has to be made to see that nothing contrary to law of the law is advertised or shown on the websites,” Misra said, directing the solicitor general to explain the government position afresh at the next hearing on December 15.