Yahoo India on Tuesday expressed displeasure at being made a respondent along with
social networking giants Google and Facebook in a lawsuit against the perpetration of
"objectionable content" online .
The media giant said in a written submission to the civil court hearing the case that its inclusion in the suit was a violation of India's legal process, and asked additional civil judge Praveen Singh to take its name off the list of social networking firms accused of hurting the society's sentiments by hosting "objectionable" content.
"The present suit is not only motivated but also a complete abuse of the process of law," Yahoo India's petition stated. "The defendant (Yahoo India) has been condemned to face a long drawn out case due to the plaintiff's mistake of bunching it with other social networking websites and holding it liable for offences allegedly committed by others."
Yahoo India is one of the 21 companies named in a petition filed by Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, who identifies himself as a Muslim intellectual scholar. In his complaint, Qasmi had said certain images, videos and text hosted by these websites could cause "irreparable loss and injury" to people by hurting their sentiments. Among the images cited by him included some that he believed insulted Hindu gods, the prophet Mohammed, and other religious and political figures. Yahoo India took particular umbrage at the complainant's contention that the company and its employees were helping in 'misleading' India's younger generation.
"(Qasmi's case comes from a) total misappreciation of the manner and mode of the working of the Internet and the world-wide-web and the law applicable thereto, and the plaintiff has shown a cavalier disregard to the same," it said. It also asserted that it should not be pulled in along with the other companies - which include Facebook, Google and Microsoft - since it did not strictly fit into the 'social networking' label.
"The defendant is primarily a content portal offering e-mail and messenger communication services but not offering features generally associated with social networking websites," the company told the court. "The generalised social evils alleged against some of the prominent social networking websites cannot be fastened on to it."
It also contended that going by the argument, the removal of its name from the suit would not affect the trial. "The present proceedings are somewhat akin to (that of) a public interest litigation (PIL), wherein the plaintiff has sought certain reliefs, which do not directly concern the plaintiff and without there being any actual existing interest in the subject matter," it said, asking the court to dismiss the suit against them with an exemplary cost in its favour.
Facebook and Google India have already filed their compliance reports before the court, affirming that they had removed some of the content deemed objectionable. The case goes to hearing next on March 1.
Courtesy: Mail Today
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