Delhi HC clarifies procedure for taking down defamatory content against Smriti and daughter
If the intermediaries are of the view, the court said, that the “content in question is not covered” by the July 2022 order, they will inform Irani within three days; Irani will then be free to move an application before the court.
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Union Minister Smriti Irani (File Photo)
The Delhi High Court Thursday “clarified” for future the “procedure to be adopted” for taking down alleged defamatory content from social media platforms against Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani and her daughter.
The HC was hearing applications moved by social media intermediaries, including X, seeking modification of its July 29, 2022, interim order asking social media platforms to remove allegations, videos, posts, morphed pictures of Irani and her daughter, along with the “underlined material with such defamatory content or anything similar thereto including recirculation on their respective platforms”.
The applications were filed in a 2022 lawsuit moved by Irani against Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera, and Netta D’Souza seeking a direction to them to take down social media posts regarding allegations brought in against her daughter. The allegations were with respect to a “statutory license in respect of food and beverages operations” at a restaurant ‘Silly Souls Cafe and Bar’ in Goa.
A single-judge bench of Justice Prateek Jalan, said if Irani considers any content (by identification of the specific urls) on the platform of social media intermediaries violating the injunction order, her counsel will “address a communication to the person or entity which has uploaded the content with a copy” of the July 2022 order and Thursday’s order requesting them to take it down.
The court said if the request is not complied with within three days after receipt, Irani may approach intermediaries as the case may be. If the intermediary accepts that the content published violates the July 2022 order it will take it down within three days from receiving the communication, the court said.
If the intermediaries are of the view, the court said, that the “content in question is not covered” by the July 2022 order, they will inform Irani within three days; Irani will then be free to move an application before the court.
The counsel appearing for the intermediaries submitted that the difficulty arises from a possible reading of the interim order which obliges them to remove the content from their platforms, including removal of “anything similar thereto”.
The senior counsel appearing for Irani submitted that the “injunction has already been substantially complied with and as far as the plaintiff is aware, most of the impugned urls have already been taken”.
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