Bombay HC dismisses plea challenging Facebook block on Sanatan Sanstha pages

The Bombay High Court in Goa on Monday dismissed a petition filed by the statebased Hindu organisation Sanatan Sanstha which had challenged the blocking of three pages on FacebookThe Court order said that the petitioner had been unable to point out any provision under the Information Technology Act 2000 vis a vis maintaining a page on the popular social media site without agreeing to its contractual termsIn an order a division bench comprising Justices MS Jawalkar and MS Sonak also said that the relief sought by the petitioner was based on sketchy and unclear pleadingsEven otherwise Mr Shirish Punalekar counsel for Sanatan Sanstha was unable to point out any provision under the Information Technology Act based on which the petitioner could insist on maintaining a Facebook page on the platform provided by Respondents No3 Facebook India Online Services and 4 Facebook Inc without agreeing to be bound by the contractual terms that may have been proposed the order saidThe Sanstha had moved the HC to challenge the blocking of three pages on Facebook which were established several years backThe petitioner had claimed that the pages had been blocked by Facebook because they clashed with the community standards of the social media siteIn his petition Sanatan Sanstha counsel Punalekar had claimed that the right to edit and block pages on Facebook seriously prejudice the petitioners right to equal treatment and the Petitioners right to freedom of speech and expressionCounsels of Facebook had said that the matter raised before the HC was in the realm of contract and if at all the petitioner has any grievance the petitioner will have to seek redressal before any appropriate forum which is empowered to adjudicate the disputes between the two private partiesThe High Court bench however maintained that the matter was to state policy and said that it is normally not for this Court to direct the Government to establish a mechanism to regulate the social media platform or provide some active fast and cheap grievances redressal forum as suggested by the petitioner while dismissing the petitionBased on the sketchy and unclear pleadings in this matter however there is no case made out for grant of any declaratory relief in this petition Court also saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever