Ankit Rawat

The Supreme Court of India issued a notice to the Centre, Google India, Yahoo India and Microsoft Corporation on a petition seeking a ban on popular online search engines promoting sex selection techniques.

A three-Judge Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices P. Sathasivam and J.M. Panchal issued notice on a writ petition filed by Dr. Sabu Mathew George highlighting the violation of Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act by the websites.

Counsel Sanjay Parikh submitted that despite bringing the websites to the notice of the departments concerned, no steps were taken to block them. He said the petition was filed for full and effective implementation of the Act.

He sought a direction to the Centre to block all websites, including those of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, that violated the Act.

Dr. George wanted a direction to the Centre to take punitive and deterrent action against these three companies.