The Supreme Court has imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh each on internet giants such as Google and Facebook for failing to spell out steps taken by them to block videos of sexual offences on social sites.
A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit noted that despite its specific order to Yahoo, Facebook Ireland, Facebook India, Google India, Google Inc, Microsoft and WhatsApp, they have not filed any document to inform it about the progress made.
The top court, in a recent order, directed them to file an affidavit before June 15 detailing the measures taken by them to curb such videos and asked its registry to keep the amount in a fixed deposit for a short term.
"In our order dated April 16, we had required the parties before us, that is Yahoo, Facebook Ireland, Facebook India, Google India, Google Inc, Microsoft and WhatsApp to let us know the status of progress made pursuant to the recommendations accepted by these entities.
"None of these entities has filed anything to show us the progress, nor any of these entities is ready with any response pursuant to our aforesaid order," the bench said.
The Centre also informed the court that the launch of the beta version of an online cyber crime reporting portal has been given up and now the portal, in its final form, will be launched on or before July 15.
The court also directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to complete the exercise by June 30.
The court passed its order hearing a suo motu case, arising out of a letter sent in 2015 to then Chief Justice of India H L Dattu by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala along with two rape videos in a pen-drive.
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