Responses have been south from Facebook India, Centre and Google India by the Delhi High court on June 6, 2012. A plea has been filed by former BJP ideologue KN Govindacharya for the recovery of taxes on their income from their operations in India.
A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rajiv Shakdher, said, “Issue notice to the respondents. The Centre is to file its reply within four weeks”. Givindacharya has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and has sought directions to the Centre and the two other websites to ensure proper accounting compliances as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.
According to the petition, the petitioner has also sought a direction for the security of data of 50 million Indian users, which were transferred to the US and are being used to commercial gains, which is a violation to right to privacy. The plea, which is filed through lawyer Virag Gupta says, “Issue a writ of mandamus …to ensure verification of all existing users and future new members of social networking websites with instructions not to do agreements with children below 13 years”.
The plea has also demanded a creation of national register of persons indulging in sexual offences and heinous crimes and stopping such people from joining social networking sites.
