The Wikipedia page reportedly referred to ANI as a “propaganda tool” for the Central government. In July 2024, Justice Chawla had issued summons to Wikipedia and directed it to share details of three users who made those changes on ANI’s Wikipedia article.
New Delhi – Justice Navin Chawla of the Delhi High Court on Monday (7th April) recused himself from hearing an appeal filed by the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, against a single-judge order that directed it to remove defamatory content related to Asian News International (ANI) from its platform.
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The appeal was listed before a Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Renu Bhatnagar. However, at the very beginning, Justice Chawla decided not to hear the case and said that the matter should be listed before another bench, subject to the orders of the Chief Justice.
“After perusing the Articles which were being cited by Defendants No. 2 to 4 (those who made edits to the Wikipedia page on ANI) while making the impugned statements, this Court opines that the impugned statements on the Plaintiff’s page are not verbatim reproduction of such articles, and these impugned statements are written in such a way which is totally contradictory to the intent with which these Articles were written and the impugned statements on the page pertaining to the Plaintiff on the Platform of Defendant No. 1 are devoid of the context of the Articles.”
This decision by Justice Chawla to step aside is significant because he had earlier handled the case when he was sitting as a single judge. At that time, he had heard ANI’s original lawsuit against Wikipedia over the allegedly defamatory changes made to ANI’s Wikipedia page.
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The Wikipedia page reportedly referred to ANI as a “propaganda tool“ for the Central government. In July 2024, Justice Chawla had issued summons to Wikipedia and directed it to share details of three users who made those changes on ANI’s Wikipedia article.
After ANI complained that Wikipedia did not follow the court’s direction, Justice Chawla took the matter seriously. He issued a notice for contempt of court and even ordered that an authorised representative of Wikipedia be personally present in court.
Later, when this order was challenged, the matter went to a Division Bench, where ANI and Wikipedia reached a mutual agreement. Under this agreement, Wikipedia agreed to serve notices to the users who made the controversial edits, but their identities were kept confidential. Wikipedia followed this and served notices to all three users accused of making defamatory statements against ANI.
After this, ANI’s case came before Justice Subramonium Prasad, who on April 2, passed an interim order. He directed Wikipedia to take down the allegedly defamatory statements.
In his order, Justice Prasad made it clear that Wikipedia could not avoid responsibility by saying it is just an intermediary platform.
“After perusing the Articles which were being cited by Defendants No. 2 to 4 (those who made edits to the Wikipedia page on ANI) while making the impugned statements, this Court opines that the impugned statements on the Plaintiff’s page are not verbatim reproduction of such articles, and these impugned statements are written in such a way which is totally contradictory to the intent with which these Articles were written and the impugned statements on the page pertaining to the Plaintiff on the Platform of Defendant No. 1 are devoid of the context of the Articles.”
The Court found that the statements made on Wikipedia were not matching the original articles cited as sources. Instead, they were written in a misleading way and were against the actual intent of those articles.
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Because of this, the Court concluded that the statements were clearly defamatory and damaged ANI’s professional reputation.
This interim order is what Wikipedia is now appealing against. However, with Justice Navin Chawla recusing himself from the Division Bench, the case will now be relisted before a new bench, as per the Chief Justice’s direction.
[Case Title: Wikimedia Foundation Inc & Ors vs. ANI Media Pvt. Ltd.]
