Delhi HC Issues Notices to 3 Congress Leaders on Senior Journalist Rajat Sharma’s Plea

Senior journalist Rajat Sharma has filed an application before the Delhi High Court alleging that X (formerly Twitter) and Congress leaders Ragini Nayak, Jairam Ramesh, and Pawan Khera have disobeyed a court order directing them to remove “defamatory tweets” posted against him.

A single bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora sought responses from X and the Congress leaders on Sharma’s plea.

The defamation suit was filed after Congress leaders accused Rajat Sharma of using abusive language on air during a show on the day of the election results. A division bench, on June 14 ordered the Congress leaders and X to remove the social media posts within seven days, in accordance with the Intermediary Guidelines.

Appearing for the senior journalist, Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar informed the court that the Congress leaders had not complied with the order despite written communications. He also noted that X had not fully complied with the order, although it had filed an appeal before the division bench. The division bench did not grant a stay and instructed X to comply with the order.

Representing X, senior advocate Rajshekhar Rao, stated that the social media platform had complied with the order as of the late evening of July 3. However, Nayar argued that the compliance was partial, as the posts were only restricted from view within India and remained accessible from outside the country. Nayar emphasized that Sharma, being a prominent journalist with 11.2 million followers, needed global compliance to protect his international reputation.

He further contended that partial compliance by X was contrary to the judgment in Swami Ramdev v. Facebook INC, which established that Indian courts have jurisdiction to issue global injunctions if the content is uploaded from India or data is located in India.

Nayar argued that since the impugned tweets were posted by Congress leaders from an IP address within India, they should have been disabled globally.

The court issued a notice in the application and granted X and the Congress leaders two weeks to file their replies, with an additional two weeks allowed for Sharma to file a rejoinder if necessary. In June, the single judge had granted Sharma’s interim injunction application, directing that any remaining X posts/tweets be removed within seven days by the defendants, in line with the Intermediary Guidelines.

The controversy began after Congress national spokesperson Ragini Nayak accused Sharma of abusing her on national television on the day of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll count.

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