We are not totalitarian regime like China: Google India to HC
Google India, which along with 20 websites is facing criminal case for allegedly hosting objectionable
materials, on Monday told the Delhi High Court that blocking them was not an option as demorcratic India
is not a "totalitarian" regime like China.
"The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was
not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian
regime like China," advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Google India, told Justice Suresh Kait.
During last hearing, Justice Kait had warned Google India and social networking site Facebook India
that websites can be "blocked" like in China if they fail to devise a mechanism to check and remove
objectionable material from their web pages.
Responding to the court's remark, Kaul referred to media reports on the issue saying "they (reports)
suggest the existance of the right (freedom of speech)."
He filed a representation in the court and said an online search for a word like "virgin" has 82.30
crore search results within 0.33 seconds and the idea of blocking a word like this would deprive
net-users the required information.
"The queries could relate to Virgin Airlines or for that matter 'virgin areas for inventions', he said.
"Google India, like its holding firm Google Inc, is also a search engine and in fact, they are same as
out of 1,91, 295 shares of Google India, 1,91, 294 shares are being held by its holding company," the
counsel for Rai said.
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