Delhi High Court notice to Google, Facebook on church's plea

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today sought the replies of various social networking sites including Google and Facebook to a plea for removal of "defamatory and derogatory" articles against a church and an NGO from their sites.

Issuing notice to M/s Google India Pvt Ltd, its subsidiaries - You Tube, Blogger, Blogspot.in and also to Facebook, Justice Valmiki Mehta sought their replies by January 7, next year.

The court issued the notice on a joint plea of Gospel for Asia (a city-based NGO) and Believers Church, which alleged that "there are several malicious contents with intent to defame and destroy the reputation of entire organisation (church) including it founder Metropolitan Bishop Dr K P Yohannan and Rev Fr Daniel Varghese, Diocesan Secretary of the church."

"Certain persons with vested interest are continuously trying to malign the reputation of the organisation by uploading defamatory contents on internet.

"The Google and other intermediaries are liable to restrict these contents as per Section 79 (3)(a) of the Information Technology Act since," said the complaint filed through counsel Deepak Prakash.

The civil suit also cited the statements of former presidents A P J Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Devi Singh Patil appreciating the work of the organisation and claimed that "different government agencies verified and appreciated the work of the organisation on different occasions and stated that there is no negative remark about them from any corner."