Uttarakhand HC Imposes Rs 50k Costs on Facebook for not filing reply in PIL against online extortion
The PIL was filed by a man whose morphed obscene video had been uploaded on Facebook. He alleged that despite the IT Rules, 2021 being in place, the company was not acting in terms of the grievance redressal mechanism and self regulating mechanism contained in the aforesaid Rules.
In a Public Interest Litigation filed seeking guidelines to deal with cases of online extortion and abuse, the Uttarakhand High Court recently observed that prima facie it appeared that Facebook was complying with Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The bench of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Ramesh Chandra Khulbe found that the Meta-owned platform had not filed its reply in the PIL despite being given proper opportunity and therefore, imposed costs of Rs. 50,000 on the social media giant.
“The costs be deposited within three weeks. It is made clear that no further time shall be granted for this purpose,” the court ordered.
The court, however, acceding to the request made by the counsel for Facebook for granting further time, allowed four weeks' time to the company to file its counter-affidavit while stating that the affidavit should also disclose the steps taken by Facebook to comply with the IT Rules, 2021.
The PIL was filed last year seeking direction to the Central government, State government, police authorities and Facebook to frame guidelines to deal with online abuse cases. The plea also sought a direction to all the respondent parties to coordinate amongst themselves to operate a 24*7 effective helpline number in Uttarakhand to deal with such cases.
The plea also demanded that Facebook and State authorities produce an action taken report before the court on the number of complaints that they had received of online abuse.
The plea was filed by a man who had alleged that his one morphed video had been uploaded by someone on Facebook and despite his complaint to the company, it had not acted in terms of the grievance redressal mechanism and self regulating mechanism contained in the IT Rules, 2021.
Facebook was served notice in 2021 itself, however, it failed to file any counter affidavit in the plea to date.
Case Title: Alok Kumar v. Union of India and others