Delhi High Court has refused to entertain the plea filed by an army officer seeking directions to the Director-General of Military Intelligence to withdraw its June 6 orders to ban the use of Facebook, Instagram, and other 87 apps for armed forces personnel.
The court has scheduled the next date of hearing on July 21.
A bench of Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Justice Asha Menon declined the plea as they didn’t find any valid reason to entertain such plea and stated that the question of granting any interim relief does not arise, especially when the matter has the potential of concerning the safety and security of the country.
“No. No. Sorry. You please delete it. You can always create a new one. It cannot work like this. You are part of an organization. You have to abide by its mandate. If you are so dear to FB, then put in your papers. See you have to make a choice, what do you want to do. You have other choices which are also irreversible,” further added the bench.
Counsel appearing for Lt Colonel Chaudhary contended that this compromises with the right to privacy of the petitioner and repeatedly asked the bench to grant relief by allowing him to retain his account in deactivated form instead of deleting the account.
To which Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma replied, “We found that Facebook was a bug. It was infiltrating as a cyber warfare and there were so many instances of personnel being targeted.” He also said that the only grievance the petitioner is talking about using Facebook to communicate with his family in the US, but there are other options available for an easier mode of communication including WhatsApp, Twitter, and Skype.
