Supreme Court Judge’s Sons Want Pokemon Go Banned
Gujarat High Court sends notices to Centre and Niantic following the petition.
Pokemon Go hasn’t even officially launched in India, and there’s already a petition to ban the mobile phone game.
A public interest litigation in the Gujarat High Court has challenged Pokemon Go’s growing popularity, citing “a threat to national security and hurting religious sentiments.” The petition has been filed and advocated by the sons of sitting Supreme Court judge Justice Anil Dave. Alay Anil Dave has filed the PIL and advocate Nachiket Dave is arguing on his brother’s behalf in court.
The Gujarat High Court has issued notices on the PIL to the Centre, Gujarat government and Niantic Inc – the developer of the game. The PIL has urged the court to ban this game, alleging that it hurts religious sentiments by showing pictures of eggs in places of worship to gain points.
Looking to various spiritual practices including religious practices so described in various Vedas, including Upanishads and religious texts; consuming an egg is considered to be obnoxious and against religious practices and depiction of such eggs in temples and other places of worship is hurting religious sentiments.Excerpt from the PIL in Gujarat High Court
Along with hurting religious sentiments, the PIL cites threat to national security and conspiracy theories about the game being used by the CIA to create maps to “areas currently unavailable in Google Maps.”
Hitting out at Niantic Inc, the PIL alleges that the American company is “striking at the root of individuality and existence of Hindu religion.”
Other concerns raised in the PIL are infringement of right to privacy, threat to life of players who have to walk around to score a point, right to practice one’s own religion, violation of a temple’s sanctity, game’s influence on the minds of children and “behaviour as an Indian”, among others.
“Any person or state is not authorised to commit such an act directly or indirectly and cannot permit such obnoxious unreligious activity under the guise of a game,” alleges the petition in Gujarat High Court.
Pokemon Go is not available for download yet but gamers are playing it by downloading and installing android application package (APK) files from various websites on the internet. The official launch date for India has also not been announced yet.
