Why didn't you act: Supreme Court slams Centre for inaction on complaint against rape videos

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday took strong exception to alleged inaction by the Centre for over 20 days on a complaint relating to posting of two rape videos on WhatsApp and asked the CBI to catch the person who first uploaded them. “Why you (Ministry of Home Affairs) did not act? You sat over it for over 20 days. You (ASG) please tell us what MHA has been doing,” the social bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit said. [caption id=“attachment_2152729” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Supreme Court. Reuters[/caption] The remarks came after court inquired about the action taken by the MHA which was provided with all the information and rape videos on February 10. The bench, which was informed by CBI that it has lodged eight FIRs and one preliminary inquiry into the incident, asked the probe agency to “find out” the person who uploaded the sexual assault videos first time. “You (CBI) must come hard and pounce upon the person who first uploaded the videos for pleasure of somebody. If you do not catch him then such incidents will keep happening,” it said. The bench then asked Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh, who appeared for MHA and the CBI, to find out as to whether it was possible to catch the person saying, “we are sorry, this should have been done in February itself”. Meanwhile, it also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Odisha for non-appearance of its lawyer despite the issuance of notice to it on February 27. The bench also imposed fine on Telangana for not providing details of progress made by the state police into a case relating to an attack on the car of one of the office bearers of the NGO who had launched the ‘Shame the Rapist’ campaign on social networking sites. At the outset, the ASG informed the bench that CBI has lodged eight FIRs in the incident and have got the video examined by the forensic laboratory and shortly, pictures of the culprits will circulated for making an effort to nab them. The ASG also said that a nodal officer will be required to deal with the case in co-ordination with the Information Technology Ministry. PTI