North News

New Delhi, August 22

In response to a Supreme Court order, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has mandated all social media platforms to remove the name, photographs and videos of the victim in the RG Kar Medical College rape and murder case. The Ministry also directed these platforms to report their compliance actions to the cyber laws division of the ministry. The Supreme Court has expressed serious concerns over the widespread use of the victim’s photographs and the revelation of her identity on social media, emphasizing that the identity of rape victims must be protected. The court further ordered that the media, including the press, must not disclose the identity of such victims.

In an official statement, MeitY instructed social media platforms operating in India to adhere to the Supreme Court’s order issued on August 20 in the case titled Kinnori Ghosh @ Anr. versus Union of India & Ors. The Ministry detailed that the Supreme Court, through an injunctive order, directed the prompt removal of all references to the deceased’s name, photographs, and video clips from all social media platforms and electronic media. This directive aims to address concerns over the dissemination of sensitive material related to the incident.

The operative paragraph of the Supreme Court’s order reads as follows:

“This Court is constrained to issue an injunctive order since the social and electronic media have proceeded to publish the identity of the deceased and photographs of the dead body after the recovery of the body.

We accordingly direct that all references to the name of the deceased in the above incident, photographs and video clips shall forthwith be removed from all social media platforms and electronic media in compliance with this order.“