Court directs MHA to serve summons to foreign websites

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) was asked today by a Delhi court to get its summonses served to various foreign-based social networking websites, including Facebook and Google, accused of promoting class enmity and undermining the national integrity.

The court asked MHA that the summonses issued against the websites should be returnable by September 22.

"Let the accused (social networking websites) be summoned through the assistance of the MHA, Government of India. The summonses shall be returnable on September 22," Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja said.

These websites named in the complaint filed by Vinay Rai includes -- Facebook, Orkut, Youtube, Yahoo, Blogspot, Google and Microsoft.

Besides this, the court discharged two accused websites, Shyni Blog and Exbii after the complainant's counsel SPM Tripathi told the court that they do not want to proceed with the complaint against the two websites as their addresses have not been found despite all efforts.

"In view of the statement made by the advocate for the complainant, the complaint is dismissed against accused Exbii and Shyni Blog," the magistrate said.

The court, on the last date of hearing, had told Rai to come out with the modalities of serving the summonses to the foreign-based websites.

As the day's proceedings began, advocate Tripathi said they could send the summonses served to the websites through courier service.