New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to examine whether knowledge can be curtailed by imposing a complete ban on sex determination advertisements that ‘pop up’ suddenly in the internet search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
A three-judge Bench of Justices Dipak Misra, A.M. Kanwilkar and M.M. Shantanagouder posted a batch of petitions filed by NGO Sabu Geoerge and others for final hearing on April 13, after senior counsle Harish Salve, Abhishek Singhvi and K.V. Viswanathan, appearing for the search engines submitted that such a ban cannot be imposed.
Justice Misra told the counsel that while knowledge, wisdom and information cannot be blocked there can be no doubt that there has to be freedom for access to information, but such freedom can’t violate a law that holds the field.
He said court cannot curtail free choice of information for research and other pusposes. Curiosity to know information cannot be curtailed and court will be treading a dangerous path. The bench, however, said it will examine the issue and asked the counsel to give brief written submisisons on this issue and posted the matter for further hearing on April 13.
It was submitted by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft that they were willing to block all commercial advertisements, but it would be impossible to block knowledge which are not commercial.
