New Delhi, October 10: The Delhi High Court, on Wednesday, interrogated the Central Government for its failure to produce the contracts signed with social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp, despite directives having been issued five months ago.
On May 7, the Centre had sought time to place before the court the “exact nature of the contracts which have been entered into by the government/government departments with the social media sites on the internet.”
Thereafter on July 30, the Government had again requested for more time but has still been unable to produce the contracts before Court. This irked the Division Bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva who posed questions before the Government on Wednesday.
“What do the contracts say? Because we have a lot to say on that.” the Bench was quoted as saying.
In response to the Court’s query, the Government Counsel said that the Centre has “standard contracts” with the sites and they are “not tailor-made.”
To this, the Bench remarked, “that is exactly what he (petitioner) wants to say.”
The Court’s direction and observations came while hearing a PIL filed by former BJP leader K N Govindacharya who has raised questions on the usage of social media by government departments.
Gupta also contended that as per contracts the government has with these companies, it is “transferring/surrendering” all intellectual property rights of the data being uploaded on these sites.
The Court had earlier directed the Centre to submit the details of contracts in order to ascertain if the sites had licences to the intellectual property rights of the uploaded material.
The Central Government has, however, been ordered on Wednesday to ensure that the contracts it has with social media biggies like Facebook, YouTube and Whatsapp are submitted before the next date of hearing on October 28, so that the matter can be put to end once and for all.