SC closes petition seeking to ban Zoom app

New Delhi, Feb 14

The Supreme Court on Tuesday closed a PIL seeking a ban on the use of the Zoom application over security and privacy concerns.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar contended before a bench headed by justice Sanjiv Khanna that the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had found nothing wrong in the usage of the application.

Datar further contended that many use Zoom and the petition against it does not survive. He pointed out that the concerned ministry had said there is nothing wrong in using Zoom, and queried why only target us and not WebEx etc?

The petition was filed by one Harsh Chugh, who had sought a ban on the use of Zoom for official and personal purposes. The petitioner had argued that the software gives rise to several privacy and security concerns.

After hearing Datar's submissions, the bench, also comprising justice M.M. Sundresh, closed the proceedings in the matter. The top court also declined to entertain an intervention application to place the additional documents in the matter.

During the hearing, the petitioner's counsel contended that the government had issued certain notifications that Zoom shouldn't be used and further added that let the government say that Zoom is good to use.

The bench said it has considered the minutes of the meeting of the National Security Council Secretariat held in December 2020, regarding the security features of Zoom, VC platform, and nothing survives in the petition in view of this document.

The plea had also sought directions to the government to carry out an exhaustive technical study into the security threats posed by the use of the app.