Women are placed on an upper pedestal and photographs invasive of their privacy cannot be authorized.
New Delhi:
Women are placed on a higher pedestal and privacy photographs cannot be authorized, the Delhi High Court said on Tuesday during the hearing of a Tamil Nadu leader’s appeal, challenging a order dismissing his claim that his image was tarnished by alleged morphed photos and videos. with a man on social media.
The court also observed that to outrage a woman’s modesty in any way is a criminal offense.
However, Facebook, Google and YouTube claim that they are only intermediaries and do not download any content on their platforms.
The chief had challenged the order of the single judge and urged the seat of the division to give instructions for the removal of the objectionable photographs and also to cancel the costs which had been imposed on him by the single judge.
One bench observed: “We are placing the women on a higher pedestal. We do not want photographs that invade her privacy.”
The bench asked the social media giants to remove the offending material from their platforms.
“No more mud, no more ending,” said the bench.
Lead lawyer Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Facebook, said it was only an intermediary and that they had not downloaded any documents.
The platforms have their own objectionable content verification system and continue to remove it, he said, adding that if the court orders them to remove the material, they will follow the instructions.
When Facebook’s lawyer said they were consensual photographs, the judge said it could be, but it could be for personal consumption and not to be made public.
Lead counsel Arun Kathpalia, appearing for Google and YouTube, also said that they were intermediaries and did not download content from the Internet and could only disable URLs.
He said he protested the practice of only involving intermediaries in a lawsuit and not the one who downloaded the content from the Internet.
“Intermediaries have no interest in defending the content. You cannot sue us without involving the party who downloaded the content,” he said.
The bench asked counsel for the parties to discuss the wrongdoing and removed the matter for new proceedings on July 8.
The single judge, in his June 2 order, observed that people had the right to know with whom their electoral representative met behind closed doors and teased.
He said the politician was not entitled to any compensation against the social media giants for removing the photographs and blocking access to them and ordered him to pay a fee of 2 lakh rupees each to Facebook Inc d on the one hand and to Google LLC and YouTube LLC together on the other.
