The Supreme Court on Monday refused urgent listing of a plea challenging the recent Madras High Court order directing the Centre to ban the TikTok app over concerns about access to pornographic content through it.
A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said the plea will come up for hearing in due course of time. Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Chinese company ByteDance, said that there are over billion download of the app and the Madurai Bsench of Madras High Court has passed an ex-parte order.
“No urgent listing. The matter will come up in due course of time,” the Bench said. The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on April 3, had directed the Centre to ban mobile application TikTok as it voiced concern over the “pornographic and inappropriate contents” being made available through such apps.
It directed the media not to telecast video clips made with TikTok. The app allows users to create short videos and then share them. It had asked the Government if it would enact a statute on the line of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in the US and posted the matter for further hearing on April 16.
The High Court had passed the interim order Wednesday on a PIL petition which sought to ban Tik Tok app on ground that it allegedly contained contents that “degraded culture and encouraged pornography”.
