India okays prosecution of Google, Facebook

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Hours after a Delhi court issued summons to social networking sites, the government gave its nod for prosecution of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo India over content regulation.

Earlier in the day, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo India had sought exemption from a Delhi court as the matter is still pending before the High Court.

A Delhi court also issued summons to the various foreign-based social networking sites to face criminal charges for allegedly hosting objectionable contents and directed them to appear before it on March 13. Summons will be sent to the companies through the Ministry of External Affairs.

The court's direction came after the counsel, appearing for Facebook India, said over 10 out of 21 companies named as accused in the case were foreign-based and that the court would have to issue process to serve the summons on them.

The court was hearing a petition moved by journalist Vinod Rai to remove objectionable content from 21 websites. Among these, 12 websites are of foreign-based companies.

Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar earlier summoned the accused companies to face trial for allegedly committing the offence punishable under sections 292 (sale of obscene books etc.), 293 (sale of obscene objects to young person etc.) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).