The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought responses from five Central ministries including home affairs and finance on a PIL seeking action against various social networking websites and recovery of tax on income arising from their operations in the country.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought responses from five Central ministries including home affairs and finance on a PIL seeking action against various social networking websites and recovery of tax on income arising from their operations in the country.
A bench comprising justices BD Ahmad and RV Easwar also issued notices to the ministries of law and justice, information and broadcasting and the department of personnel and training and asked them to file their responses within six weeks.
The court, which has now fixed the matter for hearing on April 9, had earlier issued notices to the information and technology ministry, Facebook India and Google India on the PIL by former BJP ideologue KN Govindacharya seeking recovery of tax from social networking sites, arising out of their Internet-based business in the country.
In his plea, Govindacharya, currently patron of 'Rashtriya Swabhimaan Aandolan', also sought directions to the Centre and two websites to "ensure proper accounting compliances as per RBI guidelines".
The petition also sought a direction to ensure safety of data of 50 million Indian users, which were transferred "to the US and being used for commercial gains in violation of right to privacy".
"Issue a writ of mandamus ... To ensure verification of all existing users and future new members of social networking websites with instructions not to do agreements with children below 13 years," the PIL, filed through lawyer Virag Gupta, said.
A national register of persons, indulged in sexual offences and heinous crimes, be maintained and such persons be "refrained" from joining social networking websites, it said.
The petition, which chronicles violations of various terms by the websites, also sought a direction to the Centre to ensure that government officers do "not use social networking websites through office computers" as they may pose threat to sensitive data and national computer network.
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