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Court refuses to make Centre party to suit against websites
A city court on Friday refused to make the Government of India a party to a civil suit seeking action against various social networking sites, including Facebook, for allegedly hosting objectionable contents.
Administrative Civil Judge Praveen Singh also dismissed the plea to review his order for dropping Google India and others from the list of parties against whom the suit had been filed by one Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi. The court imposed a fine of `10,000 on Qasmi for filing, what the court said, was a frivolous plea leading to wastage of time. Qasmi had said that the Centre should be made a co-plaintiff for proper adjudication of the suit as it related to public, religious and national issues.
“The application of the plaintiff is devoid of merits. The application has been filed without disclosing any ground on how and why the Union of India is a necessary party,” said the court.
Qasmi had also sought review of the court’s April 12 order by which Google India, Youtube India, Orkut India and Blogspot India were dropped from the list of parties against whom the suit had been filed. “No court and no litigant can force anyone to prosecute or become a plaintiff or pursue a lis as a plaintiff or petitioner before the court,” the court said.
The court had dropped them as parties to the suit after Qasmi and his counsel Santosh Pandey had stated they had no objection to their being dropped. In their plea, seeking their restoration as parties, they had said they had given their no objection for deletion of the names of Google India and the other three parties inadvertently and due to some confusion.
“The act of plaintiff was not the act of an uninformed, unassisted litigant, but was a decision arrived at after due discussion with his counsel,” the court said, adding there was no new ground for the court to review its earlier order.
After the case against Microsoft and Yahoo were dropped and exclusion of other parties among the 22 entities against whom the suit had been filed for allegedly hosting objectionable content, the case is now on only against six —Facebook (India and US), Google Inc, Orkut, Youtube and Blogspot (through Google Inc CEO Larry Page).
A city court on Friday refused to make the Government of India a party to a civil suit seeking action against various social networking sites, including Facebook, for allegedly hosting objectionable contents.
Administrative Civil Judge Praveen Singh also dismissed the plea to review his order for dropping Google India and others from the list of parties against whom the suit had been filed by one Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi. The court imposed a fine of `10,000 on Qasmi for filing, what the court said, was a frivolous plea leading to wastage of time. Qasmi had said that the Centre should be made a co-plaintiff for proper adjudication of the suit as it related to public, religious and national issues.
“The application of the plaintiff is devoid of merits. The application has been filed without disclosing any ground on how and why the Union of India is a necessary party,” said the court.
Qasmi had also sought review of the court’s April 12 order by which Google India, Youtube India, Orkut India and Blogspot India were dropped from the list of parties against whom the suit had been filed. “No court and no litigant can force anyone to prosecute or become a plaintiff or pursue a lis as a plaintiff or petitioner before the court,” the court said.
The court had dropped them as parties to the suit after Qasmi and his counsel Santosh Pandey had stated they had no objection to their being dropped. In their plea, seeking their restoration as parties, they had said they had given their no objection for deletion of the names of Google India and the other three parties inadvertently and due to some confusion.
“The act of plaintiff was not the act of an uninformed, unassisted litigant, but was a decision arrived at after due discussion with his counsel,” the court said, adding there was no new ground for the court to review its earlier order.
After the case against Microsoft and Yahoo were dropped and exclusion of other parties among the 22 entities against whom the suit had been filed for allegedly hosting objectionable content, the case is now on only against six —Facebook (India and US), Google Inc, Orkut, Youtube and Blogspot (through Google Inc CEO Larry Page).
