The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites after their Indian subsidiaries told the court that they were not entitled to reply to the court’s notice on disclosing the identity of the Kathua rape victim, the ANI reported. The matter will be heard on May 29.
The Delhi High Court had fined Rs 10 lakh to each media house that had revealed the identity of the eight year old girl from Kathua in Kashmir, who was drugged, starved and gangraped before she was killed in January this year.
The court has warned that anyone disclosing the rape victim’s identity can face imprisonment of six months. The High Court had issued notice to different media houses for disclosing the identity of the rape victim.
The Kathua case has been condemned globally. Deepika Singh Rajawat, the advocate representing the victim’s family had said that members of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association had threatened her and asked her to not appear in the case. The association, though, had denied the allegation. There were protests on the streets in support of the accused, something that shocked people in India and abroad. The Supreme Court has now transferred the case to Punjab’s Pathankot for hearing, following the call for such a transfer from the child’s family.