Delhi HC Issues Notices To Congress Leaders Over Non-Compliance In Removing ‘Offensive Posts’

The Delhi High Court on Friday has issued notices to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera, and Ragini Nayak based on a plea from veteran journalist Rajat Sharma.

Sharma claims these leaders have deliberately ignored a court order directing them to remove alleged offensive social media posts against him. Justice Manmeet P S Arora also issued a notice to the social media platform ‘X’ Corp regarding Sharma’s application in his ongoing lawsuit.

The high court has asked the defendants to respond within 2 weeks and scheduled the next hearing for August 22.

Previously, on June 14, the court directed the three Congress leaders to remove social media posts accusing Sharma of using “abusive language” on his show during the Lok Sabha election results announcement. The court noted that allowing these posts to remain would cause “irreparable loss and injury” to Sharma’s reputation.

Sharma’s counsel argued that the Congress leaders have not complied with the June 14 order, as the posts are still online. X Corp claimed it complied with the order on July 3 by disabling the posts in India, but Sharma’s lawyer argued that they should be disabled globally, as the posts were uploaded from IP addresses within India.

The application asserted that the conduct of X Corp and the Congress leaders constitutes “willful, deliberate, and contumacious conduct,” interfering with the administration of justice. It urged the court to hold them in contempt and to detain key managerial personnel in civil prison for non-compliance.

The application also requested the court to order the defendants to declare their movable and immovable properties and to attach these properties. Previously, the high court had summoned the defendants, including the 3 Congress leaders, X Corp, Google India, and Meta Platforms, for a hearing on July 11.

Sharma’s counsel sought ex-parte relief for the removal of the offensive posts and videos against him and to restrain the political leaders from making further allegations.

The controversy began when Nayak accused Sharma of abusing her on national television during a June 4 debate on his show. Sharma’s counsel contended that the Congress leaders started tweeting about the incident on June 10 and 11, circulating a doctored clip of the show with inserted abusive content, which was not present in the original footage.

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