“Let this issue be decided once and for all” – Delhi HC on minors and social media

A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court today questioned the Central Government for its failure to produce the contracts that were signed with social media sites like Facebook and Whatsapp..The query came during the hearing of a plea filed by KN Govindacharya. The former BJP leader has claimed that minors opening accounts with social networking sites violated the Indian Contract Act, 1872, the Indian Majority Act, 1875 and the Information Technology Act, 2000..On the last date of hearing, the Bench had directed the Centre to “come out” with details of contracts it had with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to ascertain whether these websites have licences to the intellectual property rights of content uploaded..Today when the said direction was not complied with, the Division Bench of Justice BD Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva expressed their displeasure over the same..“The last order directing you to produce these contracts was issued in May. Five months have passed since then. why don’t you file those contracts? You’re hiding them from us.” .The Petitioner’s counsel then submitted before the Court that the Government had entered into contracts with these websites that would effectively lead to surrendering the IPR’s of registered users. He further argued that the Government had no authority to surrender IP rights over data that was “public and sovereign.”.“Germany has special provisions to regulate these social media companies. We are not challenging the right of the public to use such platforms. But the policies enacted by the Government itself mandate that data (obtained from the social media sites) needs to be maintained in a certain form as per the IT Act.”.Arguing on the ‘Digital India’ scheme introduced by the present regime, the Counsel also submitted that every video of the PM and his ministers was being uploaded by them on YouTube and they were making full use of these platforms..“This court may direct them strongly that the agreements signed by the Govt should be in strict compliance of law.” .While the Court admonished the Petitioner over adverse comments against the Digital India campaign saying that ‘there was nothing wrong with it’, it did not spare the Government over its laxity on the issue..Therefore it directed the Union to file the relevant contracts entered with Facebook, Whatsapp and YouTube within a week..“Let this issue be decided once and for all.”.The matter will now be taken up for hearing on October 28.