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The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to central government and tech giant Google LLC on a petition moved by a YouTuber challenging the removal of his contents and permanent termination of channels.
Youtuber Rachit Kaushik has challenged the removal of videos and permanent termination of his accounts by Google. Hearing the plea, Justice V Kameswar Rao issued notice and sought a reply from the respondents within three weeks. Court has listed the matter for March 30. The court will hear the petition along with one moved by a senior advocate against the termination of his Twitter account. The petition moved through Advocate Raghav Narayan and Pallavi Dubey said that the petitioner had more than ten lakh subscribers. His two YouTube channels namely "Sabloktantra" and "Truth and Dare" were permanently terminated in an illegal, arbitrary and biased manner. The plea further said that the said action was taken without specifying the grounds or reason or without providing any opportunity of hearing to the petition. There is no mechanism of hearing. The petition said the action of Google is also against the principle of natural justice. The entire process of removal of videos and subsequent appeal is based on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and there is no human intervention at all. Advocate Narender Hooda submitted before the bench that the action of Google is also incomplete derogation to the provision of IT Rules 2021 enacted by the central government. Hooda further submitted the petitioner was exercising his fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression as under the Constitution of India by using the platform. The bench asked the counsel how can he filed the petition under Article 226. He replied that the Government of India, being the custodian of the rights of its citizen has statutory duty to enforce the right and to take action against the respondent company. Advocate Mamta Jha, counsel for Google, submitted that there are community guidelines for users. Petitioner was showing objectionable content including the Shaheen Bagh and hate speeches. He was warned. Despite warnings, he continued to do that. He then started a new channel. The petitioner has urged the Court to issue direction to the government to take action against Google for not complying with the various provisions of IT Rules 2021. He also urged to direct the company to enact a mechanism and consequently constitute an independent adjudicating authority or redressal forum for redressal of grievances in a time-bound manner raised by users against the significant social media intermediary like respondent company. (ANI)
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