Cuttack: Where is the Centre’s notification to remove all links on social media platforms of deadly online game Blue Whale Challenge ? Why the agencies that are supposed to act as per the notification are not working?
This is what lawyer Shiv Shankar Mohanty has asked in PIL filed in the High Court.
Admitting the PIL, the court on Monday issued notices to the Centre and the state government to file their counters.
Stating that Section 69(a) of Information Technology Act 2000 authorises the Centre to issue directions for blocking public access to any material that incites commission of any cognisable offence, the petitioner has said that the Centre on August 11 has issued directions to remove the links to the deadly Blue Whale game. However, he alleged, the notification is not available in the public domain. He also pointed out that despite Centre’s August 11 notification to remove the online links of the game, the intermediaries have not done so.
Mohanty, who argued his own case, said that the game has taken many a life. The game administrator abet the participants to commit suicide by giving instructions like taking selfies on the edge of rooftops or cut the wrist vein.
A division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B R Sarangi issued the notices to the respondents, including the Central government and the state government while adjourning the matter till September 18.
