Supreme Court refuses to entertain plea against blocking websites by ISPs

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today refused to hear a plea challenging the decision of the Centre and the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to block some websites to prevent piracy of commercial content.

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Deepak Mishra refused to entertain the petition and asked the petitioner Jiten Kumar Jain to approach the Delhi High court.

Jain in his plea had alleged that the decision to block the sites was "arbitrary and unjustified"

"Under the guise of preventing piracy of commercial content, the Government of India and the private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have taken to regularly pre-censoring websites and blocking access to them, without any orders either under Section 69A of the IT Act or under the IT Rules.

"Those blocked sites include political and commercial rivals and critics, resulting in a serious breach of Articles 19 & 21 of the Constitution, and constituting an attack on the democratic fibre of the nation," the petitioner said.

"Even where any infringing or offensive material is carried, instead of isolating and blocking the URL of that material, the respondents have blocked the entire parent domain, thereby inconveniencing millions of internet users across the country," the petition said.

The bench, however, told Jain to raise these issue before the high court. The petitioner thereafter withdrew his plea.