A director of the website 'Rediff.Com' has moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash a criminal complaint which alleges that the website, through the search engine linked to it, disseminates obscene material.
Sunil N Phatarphekar, one of the non-executive directors of Rediff, filed the petition after a lower court issued process against the website and its directors, despite experts' report that it would be impossible for a search engine to censor results of any search.
The High Court is scheduled to hear the case after two weeks.
Abhinav Bhatt, a law student based in Pune, filed a complaint with a Magistrate's court in June 2000, alleging that Rediff has committed offence under section 292 of IPC (selling and distributing obscene material).
His contention was that if a user type words such as "sexual intercourse" in the search window on rediff's home page, it threw up links of pornographic websites.
The judicial magistrate in Pune sought opinion of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd's (VSNL) Internet experts in this case.
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According to the petitioner, the VSNL's report clearly said that Rediff itself did not host any pornographic material.
It further adds that no contemporary technology could stop pornographic sites from showing up in search results. Despite this, the Magistrate in November 2000 issued process against Phatarpekar and other non-executive as well executive directors of the website. He held that "prima facia the offence has been made out".
The petitioner contends that regulating search results is not possible and "law does not expect a person to do what is not possible".
"There is no centralised storage, location or control point of Internet. A search engine won't be able to identify the content on websites. It can't make a human or subjective judgement," the petition says.
Further, the Information Technology Act too says that Internet service provider is not liable for "third party" data made available by it, the petition points out. Government pleader S Pednekar said that though government is yet to formulate its reply to petition, the matter assumes significance due to wider penetration of Internet.