The Delhi High Court has issued a notice on a plea filed by Neha Shree, a Bhojpuri actress. The actress has worked in various film industries including Rajasthani film industry. The plea sought registration of FIR and investigation with regard to her Facebook page and account being hacked and further being used as a platform for posting objectionable content.

The single-judge bench of Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar asked for a response from city Cyber Cell, Facebook, and Delhi Government. The actress alleged that her Facebook page is being used to post obscene and illegal content. She also claims to have around 40 lakh followers on this platform. The plea seeks direction on Facebook to restore the access of her Facebook page and also to delete all the objectionable content posted in the meantime.

The petition states that the actress was shattered to see her Facebook page being hacked and later being used as platform to post obscene and objectionable content including various videos and pictures. Subsequently her page was used to post sexual content as well, and since it was public page the audience settings were on public, hence crore of people already viewed what all was being posted form her Facebook page.

The petition asserts that the state investigation authorities shall act immediately on the cybercrime committed against her where her Facebook account and page was hacked and misused for immoral and illegal purposes.

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The case of the actress is that on October 19 or 20, 2021, at night she received an email from Facebook which said that she has been removed as an admin from her Facebook . And after that she was not able to access her page.

A complaint subsequent complaint was made to Facebook regarding the page being hacked but there was no satisfactory action taken by Facebook to resolve the said issue.

The petitioner entrusts her belief in the judiciary and says that the judiciary must take steps to reassure that the women are secure in this country and they would not be denied justice for any reason. This must be communicated to the nation by the judiciary by taking subsequent action against the hackers.

The matter is now listed in March 2022 for further hearing.

New Delhi: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking an age-based access control to social media and to devise a profile verification mechanism to eliminate illicit content on social media.

The petition has been filed by Skand Bajpai and Abhyudaya Mishra, law students of New Law College, Bharathi Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune. They say that this petition became imperative when no satisfactory action was taken on their June 9 complaint to cybercrime.gov.in with regard to illicit content being traded on social media.

The petitioners have prayed to institute proper investigation and legal proceedings against the users of social media profiles who are indulged in the advertisement, sale and procurement of illicit content (CSAM, rape videos) and private graphic information and to ensure deletion of such content, along with formulation of an efficient mechanism to deal with such content in the future.

The petitioners have sought directions to devise a mechanism for verification of these social media profiles as multiplicity of accounts and unverified profiles promote anonymity and impersonation. It makes it gruelling for the law enforcement agencies to trace a cyber offender. Verified social media profiles would encourage accountability and deter individuals from engaging themselves in offences in the virtual world.

In order to bring a change in the mindset of the people the petitioners have prayed for upgradation of the education policy for inclusion of efficient and mandatory adolescent sex education to remove the social taboo surrounding sex and sexuality.

In order to curb incidents of morphing pictures and videos online and engaging in revenge porn, the petitioners have further urged the court for a gender-neutral legislation and to criminalise impersonation to protect the identity of individuals.

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It has been further prayed to formulate an appropriate law regulating any minor’s access to social media and laying down appropriate age limit for such access in consonance with the present Indian legal framework.

– India Legal Bureau