Delhi High Court Today (April 2) has directed Wikipedia to delete defamatory content about news agency ANI. The Supreme Court will now hear the case on April 4.
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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has given an important interim order on Wednesday. The Court has asked the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages Wikipedia, to remove some statements from Wikipedia that are said to be bad and harmful about the news agency Asian News International (ANI).
ANI had complained that these statements are damaging its image.
Justice Subramonium Prasad was looking into a request made by ANI. The agency has filed a legal case against the Wikimedia Foundation. ANI has said that some people have changed the Wikipedia page about ANI in a wrong way. These edits say ANI is a “propaganda tool” for the Indian government, which ANI says is not true and has hurt their reputation.
When the judge gave the order, the Court said that it has allowed some of the things ANI had asked for. The judge also said the full order will be uploaded on the Delhi High Court website by evening.
Before this, in December 2024, the Court had said it would study the news articles that were used to make the edits on Wikipedia. These articles were said to be the reason behind the bad things written about ANI. But the Court also had some doubts at that time and was not sure if it should look so deeply into the matter during the interim stage.
“This is an understanding of the editor of what the source means. If the understanding is so defamatory that it is relying on something which actually does not mean it at all, then the person can be restrained… again the question is even if it can be understood in that way, then would the court go deeper into that aspect to come to a conclusion as to whether in no circumstances can it be construed it as that at all,”
-the judge had said.
Earlier, in July 2024, the Delhi High Court had also sent official court notices (called summons) to Wikipedia. The Court asked Wikipedia to give details about three people who had made the edits to ANI’s Wikipedia page. ANI had said these edits were not fair and were spreading wrong information.
ALSO READ: BREAKING | ANI Vs Wikipedia| Delhi HC Issued Summons To User Who Make ‘Defamatory’ Edits
Later, ANI told the Court that Wikipedia was not following the Court’s directions. Because of this, the judge got upset and gave a notice saying Wikipedia may have committed contempt of court (not obeying court orders). The judge also asked a top official from Wikipedia to come personally to the court on October 25, the next date of hearing for the contempt case.
After this, Wikipedia went to a higher court, called the Division Bench, to challenge these orders. In the Division Bench, both ANI and Wikipedia agreed on some points. Wikipedia said it would send legal notices to the users who were blamed by ANI for making the edits, but it would still keep their identities private. As agreed, Wikipedia sent notices to those three users.
Wikipedia was represented by Senior Advocate Jayant Mehta in this legal matter. ANI was represented by Advocate Sidhant Kumar.
When the case came before the Division Bench, something surprising happened. The judges saw that Wikipedia itself had created a page titled ‘Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation’ about this very case. The judges were not happy about this.
A Division Bench made up of Chief Justice Manmohan (who has now been promoted to the Supreme Court) and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said this was not right and ordered Wikipedia to delete that page immediately. Wikipedia followed the order and removed the page.
But after that, Wikipedia went to the Supreme Court to appeal against the Delhi High Court’s order.
On March 17, the Supreme Court issued notice to ANI and said it will look into this matter again on April 4.
CASE TITLE:
ANI MEDIA PVT. LTD. V/s WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC & ORS.
I.A. 32611/2024 In CS(OS)524/2024
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