In a hearing that lasted about 45 minutes, the Supreme Court division bench, constituting Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, scheduled the next hearing on Facebook’s transfer petition for September 13. The hearing on the WhatsApp traceability case, scheduled for tomorrow at the Madras High Court, has not been stayed. They also directed the court to issue notices to all respondents in the petition.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal represented WhatsApp while former Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi stood for Facebook. The Attorney General of India K.K. Venugopal represented the State of Tamil Nadu.
As a notice will be issued to the Union of India, sources have told MediaNama that most probably, the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta will appear for UoI.
Facebook has petitioned the Supreme Court of India to transfer four petition, currently being heard in Madras, Bombay and Jabalpur High Courts, to the Supreme Court under Article 139A of the constitution. The petition was filed on July 31. The first hearing took place on August 12, and a second hearing yesterday.
This is a short update. A detailed look at the arguments made today and yesterday will be published later in the day.
