Yahoo says case against it is motivated, seeks dismissal

Yahoo India has told a Delhi court that the complaint lodged against it along with those against 21 other social networking sites for allegedly hosting objectionable content on their websites was "motivated" and it is not liable to be dubbed as a "social evils" like others.

The internet giant sought removing its name as a party from the lawsuit contending that it was not an affected party and the "present suit is not only motivated but also a complete abuse of the process of law."

"The present proceedings are somewhat akin to a public interest litigation (PIL), wherein the plaintiff has sought certain reliefs, which do not directly concern the plaintiff and without there being any actual existing interest in the subject matter," the website said in its written submissions to the court of Additional Civil Judge (ACJ) Praveen Singh.

Yahoo said it has been condemned to face a long-drawn-out case due to the plaintiff's mistake of bunching it with other social networking websites and holding it liable for offences allegedly committed by others.

The website contended that "it has been made a party in the case on the patently mistaken assumption that it is a social networking website and thus there is no cause of action against it."

It further argued that since it is not a necessary party in the case, striking out its name would not affect the proceedings (against other social networking websites).

It also denied complainant Mufti Aizaz Arshad Kazmi's submission that he has filed the present suit as a responsible and active citizen of India.

The company sought dismissal of the suit against with an exemplary cost in its favour.

The website, earlier on February 6, was given 15 days to file its written statement in the case.

Facebook, Yahoo India and Microsoft had earlier told the court that neither any case was made out against them nor was there any cause for action.

Facebook, in its affidavit of compliance, had said it does not control or operate the servers that host the website available at www.facebook.com, which are located in the United States while Google India, in its compliance report, had said it has removed certain webpages from its sites.

The court had listed the matter for arguments on March 1.

Facebook and Google India had filed the compliance reports in response to the court's December 24, 2011 order directing them and 20 other social networking websites to give replies.

The court had earlier asked them to remove objectionable contents in the form of photographs, videos or texts which might hurt religious sentiments.

Yahoo and Microsoft have filed applications for deletion of their names from the civil complaint stating that there was no allegation against them of webcasting any objectionable contents.

Microsoft India Pvt Ltd had also sought rejection of the plaint against it, saying there was "not even a whisper of allegation against it in the entire plaint" and no cause for action was disclosed against it.

Google India, in its compliance report, had contended that it has removed certain URLs or webpages from the Internet.