Mumbai : The Centre told the Bombay High Court today that it had not issued instructions to any service provider to block the website of Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS).
The information was given by a counsel for the Centre to a bench headed by Justices Abhay Oka which was hearing a petition filed by HJS alleging that Airtel, a service provider, had blocked its website on the internet.
The bench asked the Centre, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Department of Telecom (DoT) to file their replies to the petition within three weeks. The matter has been posted for hearing on March 8.
Counsel for the petitioner, Virendra Ichalkaranjikar, contended that in view of blocking of the website, viewers were being deprived from getting information from Hindu Janjagruti Samiti about its activities.
This, he argued, was defamatory to the website and also encroached upon the liberty of the organisation (HJS).
He sought a direction to remove the blocking of the website and allow the viewers access to the information provided by HJS.
The petitioner argued that it was dedicated to protecting and promoting the Hindu Rashtra (nation) and was involved in circulating on its website information such as religion- related articles, the science of spirituality and rituals as well as news pertaining to such subjects.
On June 23, 2015, the users of Airtel network informed HJS that the website was not accessible and had been blocked, the petitioner said.
The organisation took up the matter with Airtel but no action was taken to unblock the website, the Court was told.
The petitioner urged the high court to set up some mechanism where service providers should not block websites and if this was not done, then it would be flooded with litigations.
Today, the Centre made a statement in the court that it had not issued any instructions to the service provider to block the website of HJS.
The bench asked the government and concerned authorities to file a reply and asked the petitioner to serve the service provider (Airtel) as it did not appear today.
Source : Business Standard
