MADRAS HC ASKS THE TN GOVERNMENT TO SHUT DOWN FAKE TEMPLE WEBSITES TO PROTECT DEVOTEES
The Madras Excessive Courtroom on Tuesday administered the Tamil Nadu authorities and directed them to close down all of the pretend web sites created by third events within the title of historic temples constituted within the State. [P Markandan v. The Commissioner]
A bench of Justices R Mahadevan and J Sathya Narayana Prasad of the Madurai Bench requested the State Authorities’s Hindu Non secular and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Division to crackdown all such unlawful and fraudulent web sites and streamline the method of providing devotees the choice of performing any sort of rituals on-line.
In its order, the Bench directed the State Authorities and the HR&CE Division to take motion to forestall ‘harmless devotees’ from falling into the traps of such web sites and making donations to such rip-off web sites. The Courtroom burdened the State’s obligation to behave with a purpose to stop cyber crimes. The Courtroom said that the State ought to take up the help of its cyber-crime wing and get better all of the quantities and funds collected by means of these unlawful and faux web sites.
In its order, the Madras Excessive Courtroom said that “Sadly, the place there’s good, there’s evil. Some folks make the most of the non secular religion of the devotees, fraudulently monetize it by creating unlawful web sites, they accumulate big quantity for particular darshans, rituals and different companies from the devotees, however pay solely a paltry sum to the administration of the temples, thereby deriving illegal achieve. Any such rip-off, regrettably is a typical incidence in at the moment’s time. The authorities who’re certain to take stern motion in opposition to these perpetrators, in order to forestall harmless devotees from falling prey to such soiled methods, have didn’t act accordingly. Such is the problem concerned within the current writ petitions.”
The Courtroom thought of that varied fraudulent web sites have been created by means of false imitation, within the title of temples with out the permission of the HR&CE Division of such mutts to draw devotees for the efficiency of assorted rituals and poojas within the temples at mounted charges, mounted by the archakars, who’re tied up with the touts.
The Courtroom additional mentioned that passing injunctions, restrictions, or prohibitory orders doesn’t appear adequate in such instances because the perpetrators will proceed with the unlawful work, utilizing mirror web sites or totally different URLs. Amidst these actions, the courtroom felt the necessity to move a dynamic injunction, which is often handed in issues equivalent to Mental Property Rights.
“Making use of the identical to the current case, this courtroom is of the view {that a} dynamic preventive order is necessitated due to the sheer involvement of the variety of temples, touts and unlawful web sites that both present hyperlinks to webpages or URLs created by third events, impersonating as that of the official temple websites,” mentioned the Courtroom.
It, due to this fact, directed the state authorities to ‘shutdown’ or ‘shut’ all such web sites inside a interval of three months, and submit a compliance report.
It issued the next laws and instructions to the State authorities to make sure the prevention of such impersonation sooner or later:
- The State Authorities should shut down all unauthorized and faux web sites opened by third events, within the title of temples or deities throughout the State inside three months.
- The State ought to take its Cyber Crime Wing’s assist to get better cash collected by means of pretend web sites.
- The State Authorities ought to put together a listing of licensed web sites of temples in Tamil Nadu and supply a listing of official web sites of temples with domains to Division of Telecommunication and Ministry Electronics and Info Know-how to make sure that any pretend web site created sooner or later are blocked.
- Streamline the system for letting devotees carry out poojas, temple rituals on-line.
Advocates R Venkatesh and M Karthikeyan appeared for the petitioners.
Extra Advocate Normal Veerakathiravan and Extra Authorities Pleader P Subburaj appeared for the State Authorities.
From the respondents’ aspect, there have been Advocates VR Shunmuganathan, M Muthugeethaiyan, M Sarvanan, Okay Govindraj, and L Victoria Gowri.
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