New Delhi, April 5: Search engine Yahoo has refused to own responsibility for Internet ads and information on sex selection kits that enable parents to determine their unborn child’s gender.

The company said in the Supreme Court today that the onus lies with the Indian government to block the websites that advertise these kits or sell them online — and to which many search engines provide links.

“We are just an intermediary. We provide the details. We are exempt under the (information technology) law. The government should instead block the websites offering such kits,” Yahoo lawyer Mukul Rohatgi said.

Section 79 of the act holds network service providers liable for an offence unless they can prove that it was committed without their knowledge or that they had taken due precaution to prevent such offence.

Rohatgi was responding to a court notice asking Yahoo to explain why it should not be taken to task for violating the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 2003. The act bans gender selection tests, or their promotion, in view of the high female foeticide rates in the country.

The top court had on August 14, 2008, issued notices to search engines such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo on a PIL filed by a campaigner against female foeticide, Sabu Mathew George.

The petitioner had cited how easily gender selection kits could be accessed online. He had complained that these search engines were promoting, through ads and links, the techniques and products for the selection of an unborn child’s sex.

“Unfortunately, the 2003 act, which banned sex-determination tests and their promotion through ads, has driven the business from publications and hoardings into the Internet,” the petition said.

Today, George’s lawyer Sanjay Parikh argued that the moment such kits were advertised, an offence was committed under the law. He pressed for action against the search engines and the sites promoting such kits.

Google and Microsoft are expected to later state their case.

Parikh today accused the Centre of washing its hands of the problem. “The Union (government) can’t say that ‘we can’t do anything about it’,” Parikh said.

The top court gave the government more time to work out what it could do to tackle the problem. The ministry of health and family welfare and that of communications and information technology have been made parties to the case.

Although websites can be blocked, as shown by communist China, Delhi has so far been reluctant to do so, possibly for fear of being labelled undemocratic.