The Delhi High Court orally observed that attacking a person on social media without verification “is not correct,” and suggested that Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka take down their posts against BJP leader and senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia on their own, in a defamation suit over an allegedly AI-generated tweet.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday orally observed that posts made about senior advocate and BJP leader Gaurav Bhatia by Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, without verification, were “not correct,” and suggested that the two take down the posts on their own rather than have the Court pass a takedown order [Gaurav Bhatia v. Saurav Das and Others].
Justice Tushar Rao Gedela was hearing a defamation suit filed by Bhatia against three CJP figures, Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka. The observations recorded below were made orally in the course of the hearing; the allegations on both sides are untested, no finding has been recorded, and the Court expressly declined, at this stage, to pass any takedown order.
The suit: an allegedly AI-generated tweet
According to the suit, Bhatia is aggrieved by a post published on X on September 5, in the aftermath of the arrest of one Swatantra Bhardwaj, who is accused of assaulting a teenage CJP protester. Bhatia’s case is that the post in question was an AI-generated tweet that falsely attributed to him remarks he says he never made, presenting them alongside his photograph so as to create, in the words of the plaint, “an unmistakable and false nexus between the Plaintiff and the words/content disseminated by the said Defendants.”
The essence of Bhatia’s grievance, as pleaded, is not that the defendants criticised or disagreed with something he had said, but that they allegedly represented to the public that he had made statements he in fact never made. LawChakra is not reproducing the specific words the post is said to have falsely attributed to him, precisely because the suit’s own case is that he did not utter them. The suit, seeking damages of Rs. 2 crore, further alleges that the CJP and its leaders have engaged in a pattern of public comment calculated to lower the dignity and institutional standing of the judiciary. These are the plaintiff’s allegations, which remain to be tested.
‘Attacking without verifying is not correct’
The tenor of the hearing was conciliatory rather than punitive, with the Court repeatedly nudging the parties towards a resolution short of a formal order. Addressing the defendants, Justice Gedela observed:
“There are different ways of protesting. You are all youngsters. You may have anxieties. But attacking like this without verifying is not correct, right? If you are willing to take down on your own, put your replies. We don’t want to pass takedown order.”
When counsel for Das submitted that the tweet had already been deleted, the Court observed that the defendants had posted other material as well, and counselled a more measured mode of expression:
“But you put something else also. You have right to express, but sometimes expressions need to be put in a more articulate manner, so that the intention goes in the right way. We understand, because we have gone through that age.”
The Court also gently suggested to Bhatia that there had been other ways of handling the matter, and that he could have spoken to the defendants rather than approaching the Court. Bhatia, however, pressed that this was a case of “aggravated defamation,” submitting that the posts could not be allowed to remain online given the defendants’ large following, and that they were causing damage to his image, adding that he had already given the defendants a chance.
The position of the third defendant
A significant part of the hearing concerned whether one of the three defendants, Abhijit Dipke, ought to remain in the case at all. Justice Gedela orally noted at the outset that there was nothing alleged against Dipke, and his counsel, Advocate Nakul Gandhi, requested that he be deleted from the array of parties, submitting that there was not a single tweet by Dipke and that the prayer in the suit was directed only at Das and Ranka. The Court itself observed that it was Defendants 1 and 2, Das and Ranka, who were said to have made the posts.
The exchanges grew pointed as the parties traded characterisations. Bhatia described himself as a law-abiding citizen and made allegations about the conduct of the other side, while contending that there was “an ecosystem” that targets a person who complains of a false picture being circulated. The Court, without adjudicating any of this, reiterated that it had advised the defendants to take down the posts on their own.
Passing over the matter, the Court asked counsel for Das and Ranka to take instructions and return, remarking to the defendants: “Take instructions and come back. You are youngsters, you have a long way to go. Why do you want to spend time in courts?” It said it would ask the defendants’ counsel to inform the Court whether they were willing to take down the posts voluntarily.
Why the case matters
Beyond the immediate dispute, the case sits at the intersection of two developments of growing legal significance: defamation through synthetic or “AI-generated” content, and the boundary between robust political and institutional criticism and actionable falsehood. Bhatia’s core allegation, that a fabricated post placed words in his mouth alongside his image, raises the distinct harm that AI-generated content can cause, where the wrong lies not in an opinion expressed about a person but in a false representation that the person said something they never did. Indian defamation law has always distinguished fair comment and opinion, which are protected, from the assertion of false facts, which are not; a fabricated attribution of speech falls squarely on the unprotected side of that line, whatever view one takes of the underlying politics.
Equally instructive is the Court’s chosen method. Rather than pass an interim takedown order, which would engage the competing interest in free expression, Justice Gedela pressed for a voluntary takedown and a more careful mode of expression, framing the matter as one of restraint and verification rather than suppression. That approach reflects a recurring judicial reluctance to issue prior-restraint style orders against online speech at the interim stage, preferring, where possible, that the parties resolve the specific grievance themselves. Whether the defendants accept that course, or the Court is ultimately asked to rule, is what the next hearing will determine. Nothing has been decided on the merits; the allegations of both defamation and of an “ecosystem” of institutional attack remain, at this stage, untested.
Case Title: Gaurav Bhatia v. Saurav Das and Others
Bench: Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, Delhi High Court
Date of Hearing: September 10, 2026