The Delhi High Court today quashed criminal proceedings against Yahoo! India, which was summoned along with 20 other Web sites to face trial for allegedly hosting objectionable content on their Web pages.

“The summons issued against Yahoo! India is set aside,” Mr Justice Suresh Kait said while allowing the plea of the Web site that the lower court wrongly issued the process against it, without attributing any specific role to it.

The court, however, said that a private complaint, filed by a scribe Mr Vinay Rai against the Web site, can be revived if credible and actionable pieces of evidence are filed against it.

Senior advocate Mr Arvind Nigam, appearing for Yahoo! India, said that there were no documents to support Mr Rai's allegation against the Web site for violation of any provision of law.

Mr Nigam said that the magistrate should not be casual in issuing the summons and should consider the material on record.

“It is a case where summons were issued without application of mind by the trial court as there was no material against me (Yahoo India),” he said.

“I wish to know what is the case against me,” he added.

Yahoo India Pvt Ltd, on January 20, had approached the high court challenging the summons issued to it by the trial court for allegedly hosting objectionable content.

Yahoo! India had said that the complaint and the order of the magistrate dealt with alleged objectionable material retrieved from various Web sites including Zombie, Orkut, Youtube, Facebook, Blogspot and none of them pertained to Yahoo!.

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