Delhi HC asks Centre to reply on contracts with FB, YouTube

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the central government to file a reply on the nature of contracts it has entered into with social networking site Facebook, video-sharing site YouTube and instant messaging app WhatsApp.

A division bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva asked the government to submit a copy of its contract with Facebook.

The court order came in the wake of allegations by former Bharatiya Janata Party leader K.N. Govindacharya that the government had surrendered all intellectual property rights of the contents uploaded on the social networking site.

Virag Gupta, counsel for Govindacharya, told the court that the union government has not even retained a copy of the original agreement with Facebook.

Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Centre, said the government had put enough safeguards in place to deal with the misuse of content shared by it on the social media.

Gupta told the court that by surrendering intellectual property rights of the content shared on such sites, the government was allowing foreign companies to use it for commercial purposes which, he alleged, was illegal.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Govindacharya questioning the use of social media by government departments.