J U D G M E N T

S. Manikumar, C. J.

Instant public interest writ petition has been filed for the following reliefs:

"(i) Issue a writ mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction commanding respondent No. 1, to direct the respondent Nos.5 and 6, to comply with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, in the interest of the nation.

(ii) Issue a writ mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction commanding respondents 1 to 3, to pass appropriate orders directing the investigating agencies and other lawful authorities having the power of investigation and enquiry, not to rely on contents of WHATSAPP in their functioning and not to arrest or take into custody any individual, on the basis of WHATSAPP contents, which may appear like an act of crime or violation of law.

(iii) Issue a writ mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction commanding respondent No.4, to pass appropriate orders to all the Courts of Law under the jurisdiction of High Court of Kerala that WHATSAPP contents shall not be considered at all for any purpose while conducting a trial, inquiry, or any other proceedings.

(iv) Issue a writ mandamus or any other appropriate writ or order or direction commanding respondent Nos. 5 and 6, to co-operate with the lawful authorities of the country and to provide with the needed data, so as to aid the authorities in maintaining the law and order in the country, and thus, to sub serve the justice system in India.

(v) If the respondent Nos. 5 and 6 are not willing to co-operate with the lawful authorities in India, then issue a writ prohibition or any other appropriate writ, order or direction, commanding the 1st respondent to ban/cease the operations of WHATSAPP mobile application managed by respondents 5 and 6 in India, in the best interest of the country."

2. The writ petition is filed in public interest, seeking for a ban on the social media platform WhatsApp, for the scope of manipulations at user end, and for the reason that it cannot trace the origin of a message, both media and text, that was circulated using its services.

3. Petitioner has stated that WhatsApp Applications Services Private Ltd., represented by its CEO, Hitech city, Hyderabad, respondent No.6, has approached the High Court of Delhi, claiming that it is not amenable to the newly introduced IT Rules, 2021 because of the end-to-end encryption, and thus, it cannot trace the origin of the messages circulated through it, and claims that the newly introduced Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, is against the right to privacy, as held in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and another v. Union of India and others [(2017) 10 SCC 1].

4. But, on the contrary, the 6th respondent, in its privacy policy, has stated that it will store the messages sent by a user, in certain circumstances, and that it will store and use all sorts of information and activities of its users. It also has access and uses the contacts in the address book of a user and can identify the contacts which are non users of its services. For identifying the non-user numbers, the App will use the contact numbers to search in its servers which in itself is violating privacy of the non-users.

5. Petitioner has further stated that the App is not free from manipulations and lacks security. A message received in the form of media can easily be manipulated even by any common man. A receiver can change the media received by him and such manipulation could easily cause unrest or panic among the general public and could be used against an individual. The App lacks security and reliability of messages and is a threat to society. The App is used by anti national and anti-social elements for their activities, as the same cannot be traced, due to the claim of the messaging App that the services are end-to-end encrypted. The respondents 5 and 6 are not cooperating with the law