New Delhi:
Yahoo India has been dropped from the list of 22 companies facing criminal charges in a Delhi court. The firms - which include Google, Facebook and YouTube - have been taken to court by journalist Vinay Rai over morphed and obscene photos. The firms have been accused of conspiring to distribute lascivious content.
But the Delhi High Court today accepted Yahoo's petition that said the lower court had wrongly included it in the list of companies that should be tried; the lawyer for Yahoo! argued that there were no documents to support Mr Rai's allegation against the website for violation of any law.
The High Court accepted that, but warned that the case against Yahoo! could be revived "if credible and actionable pieces of evidence are filed against It."
The lower court judge who has summoned executives of the companies in March; some, like Facebook, have applied for and been granted exemption.
The same internet companies are also dealing with a separate civil suit in another Delhi court where they have been accused of hosting material that allegedly provokes communal hatred and religious intolerance. Yesterday, the court handling that case agreed that Microsoft should be dropped from the trial after Microsoft argued that the content in question had never been served by it.