The Delhi High Court directed the Editor-In-Chief of ‘4 PM Evening Newspaper’ to remove defamatory tweets against The New Indian.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court issued an ad interim injunction order mandating the removal of defamatory tweets posted by Sanjay Sharma, the Editor-in-Chief of ‘4 PM Evening Newspaper,’ along with two other individuals, targeting the digital news outlet ‘The New Indian’ and its Editor-in-Chief.
The Court observed that the tweets directed at Rohan Dua, the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian, implied a bias towards the ruling establishment. This decision came while the Court hearing an original suit requesting permanent and mandatory injunctions and damages against the Editor-in-Chief of ‘4 PM Evening Newspaper’ and others for their defamatory posts about ‘The New Indian’ and its Editor-in-Chief on the social media platform ‘X’.
Justice Vikas Mahajan’s bench stated,
“An ad-interim injunction is issued against defendants 1 to 3… Defendants 1 to 3 are also directed to delete/remove all the defamatory links/tweets as specified…”
Advocate Raghav Awasthi represented the Plaintiff.
The Plaintiff’s case asserts that during the 2024 general elections, Rohan Dua, the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian, interviewed PM Narendra Modi and later shared publicly available views of the top 10 YouTube channels on ‘X’ to inform the audience about trending topics. The defendant’s response to this post perceived by the plaintiff as highly defamatory, suggesting that the plaintiffs were aligned with the ruling establishment.
The Court preliminarily agreed that the posts implied Rohan Dua biased towards the government, potentially damaging his credibility as a journalist.
The Court noted,
“It cannot be disputed that when it is alleged on a social media platform like ‘X’ that a journalist favours one party over others, especially when that journalist is followed by thousands of people, such statements/allegations surely compromise his integrity as a professional journalist.”
It further emphasized the importance of unbiased journalism in maintaining professional ethics and fostering trust among viewers and readers.
The Court observed that there no substantial evidence supporting the allegations against Rohan Dua and referenced the Delhi High Court‘s decision in Hanuman Beniwal and Others vs. Vinay Mishra and Others, which outlined criteria for granting interim injunctions in defamation cases: (i) the statement must be clearly defamatory; (ii) there should be no grounds to consider the statement true; (iii) no other defense should likely succeed; and (iv) there must be evidence of an intent to repeat the defamatory statement.
Consequently, the Court prohibited the Editor-in-Chief of ‘4 PM Evening Newspaper’ from posting any defamatory content or material that could damage the reputation and goodwill of the plaintiffs on ‘X’ or any other media platform.
The Court scheduled the matter for further hearing on October 29, 2024.
Read Judgement: Rajatarangini India Media Pvt. Ltd. v. Sanjay Sharma