HC Sought Answer from Government on Accounts of Children below 18 on Social Media

The High Court of Delhi on 24 April 2013 directed the Union Government of India to respond on a plea that questioned how children below the age of 18 were allowed to open an account on social networking sites like Facebook and others.

The response was sought by the Supreme Court because Indian Majority Act, the Indian Contract Act and the Information and Technology Act don’t permit a child below 18 years to open an account on the social networking sites.

The High Court bench of justices BD Ahmed and Vibhu Bakhru ordered the Union Government to file an affidavit on the issue making its stand clear within 10 days. The Court posted the matter for further hearing to 13 May 2013. The Court also ordered Facebook Inc and Google Inc, the US based firms to respond to how is the recovery of taxes from the websites on their income from operations in India is done.