Delete sex test Ads in 36 hours- SC

The Supreme Court directed the Centre to appoint a nodal agency to monitor Google, Yahoo and Microsoft websites, and asked them to “delete” within 36 hours advertisements pertaining to pre-natal sex determination in India.

Regarding this, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy said, “We direct the Union of India to constitute a nodal agency which would give advertisements on TV, radio and in newspapers....that if anybody comes across anything which identify a girl or a boy (at pre-natal stage), it should be brought to the notice of the nodal agency. Once it is brought to the notice of the nodal agency, it shall inform the search engines and they, after receiving the information, are obliged to delete it within 36 hours and inform the nodal agency.”

Representing Sabu Mathew George, the man behind petition seeking the court's intervention in light of the decreasing sex ratio, advocate Sanjay Parikh claimed that, the advertisements remained on the websites despite the court’s orders.

To stop female foeticides and curb India’s declining sex ratio, the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 was enacted, which had even banned pre-natal sex determination.

Representing Google India, along with the counsel for other search engines, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said they had complied with the earlier order passed by the Supreme court and taken steps to block such advertisements. However, they said the matter requires further debate.

On September 19th, the apex court said that these search engines were under “obligation” to check such advertisements and had directed them to develop in-house methods to prohibit such content.

A strong move on the issue was felt after Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar said that the companies had developed a technique called “auto block” which prohibits advertisements on sex determination the moment any “advertisement or search” is introduced in the online system. He had also submitted a list of 43 “proposed” key words which, when commands are given would “auto block” the site with a warning.

The court has adjourned the hearing of the matter until February 17, 2017.