Court dismisses case against Yahoo

A Delhi court today dismissed a case against Internet giant Yahoo for allegedly hosting objectionable content on its site and penalised the petitioner for dragging it in the litigation along with other social networking sites. Administrative Civil Judge Praveen Singh imposed a cost of Rs 5,000 on plaintiff Mufti Aijas Arshad Quasmi for impleading the company as a party without disclosing any cause of action against it.

The court had on December 20 last year, in a ex-parte order, issued summons to 22 social networking websites, including Yahoo, asking them to remove "anti-religious" or "anti-social" contents from their sites.

Yahoo had also pleaded with the court to remove its name from the plaint, saying no cause of action was made out against it. Yahoo was earlier imposed a cost of Rs 2,000 for delay in appearing before the court.

The court's order has come amid a raging controversy over monitoring Internet content, which arose after Union Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal had asked the social networking websites to 'screen' the content.

The websites, which are the parties to the suit initiated by Quasmi for hosting alleged objectionable content, include Facebook India, Google India Pvt Ltd, Google Orkut, Youtube, Blogspot, Zombie Time, Exboii, Boardreader, IMC India, My Lot, Shyni Blog and Topix.