A man's access to his email account was revoked for nearly a year and led him to seek recourse from the Gujarat High Court after he inadvertently uploaded a nude childhood photo onto Google Drive.

The High Court has issued a notice to Google India Pvt Limited for suspending the petitioner's email account on grounds of "explicit child abuse." This action was taken after the petitioner uploaded a photo onto Google Drive, depicting his grandmother bathing him when he was two years old.

On March 15, the court of Justice Vaibhavi D Nanavati issued notices to Google, as well as to the Central and state governments. These notices are returnable on March 26.

Neel Shukla, a computer engineer and the petitioner in the case, uploaded childhood photographs onto Google Drive. Among these was a picture depicting him being bathed by his grandmother when he was a toddler.

The tech giant blocked Shukla's account in April last year, citing a violation of its policy regarding content depicting "explicit child abuse," as disclosed by his counsel, Dipen Desai, to the court.

Shukla initiated legal action by moving the high court on March 12 after the company's grievance redressal mechanism failed to resolve the issue, he stated. Desai further informed the court that since Google blocked Shukla's email account, he has faced difficulties accessing his emails, resulting in business losses.

The petitioner, in his plea, said, "Google says this amounts to 'explicit child abuse,' and they have blocked everything. I have not been able to access my email and my business (is affected) as everything is blocked." Shukla had approached the Gujarat police and the Centre's Department of Science and Technology, the nodal agency for such matters in India, but they also failed to act, and he was forced to seek judicial remedy.