New Delhi: Delhi High Court has directed the Center to furnish a blocking order to the owner of the ‘Dowry Calculator’ website. It has also directed the Govt. to provide post decisional hearing to the owner Tanul Thakur.
The court order mentioned, “A copy of the original blocking order, after redacting the portion pertaining to the third parties, shall be furnished to the petitioner before 23rd May 2022. The Committee under the Blocking Rules, 2009 shall furnish a report to this Court as well as to the petitioner within four weeks thereafter”.
It may be mentioned that the website was banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in the month of September 2018.
The directions were issued after Thakur filed a plea seeking quashing of the blocking order.
The petition mentioned that the website is a satirical website that seeks to critique the practices of arranging marriages.
“The Petitioner’s approach was targeted at the educated middle-class, and his innovative take on this long standing social problem resonated with lakhs of people as was evident with the website gaining thousands of views within days of launch. The website was also covered by Indian and foreign news media, and the Petitioner’s efforts at raising awareness and stimulating discussion about the problems around marriage for the Indian youth were by and large warmly appreciated,” the plea reads.
The next hearing of the matter will be done on September 14.
