Journalist Sucheta Dalal challenged a Delhi court order restricting media from linking Sandesara family to Sterling Biotech fraud case. The court issued notices to parties including Google and Meta, and listed the matter for further hearing.
NEW DELHI: Journalist Sucheta Dalal has approached a Delhi court to challenge an order that bans any news coverage linking Manoj Kesari Chand Sandesara or members of his family to the alleged Sterling Biotech bank fraud case.
On April 13, District Judge Vinod Kumar Meena at the Tis Hazari Courts heard the matter and issued notices to Manoj Sandesara, Google, and Meta. The case is scheduled to be heard again on April 29.
Dalal’s entity, Moneywise Media LLP (which operates the Moneylife magazine and a digital news portal), has challenged the Civil Judge’s order dated April 4. That order had imposed a ban on Google, Meta, and unknown parties (including media organisations) from publishing any content that connects the Sandesaras to the Sterling Biotech case.
According to Dalal, the Civil Judge granted an ex parte interim injunction, directing Google and Meta and the John Doe defendants (unknown persons) to “de-index, de-list, and de-reference the URLs and content of articles flagged by Sandesara. This included three articles and a YouTube video published by Moneylife.”
Dalal’s submission is that the order is excessively wide, does not specify the particular allegedly defamatory material, undermines freedom of speech, and was passed without giving her a proper opportunity to be heard. Moneywise also claims it was not named directly in the original suit, even though its content was targeted, and it only came to know about the action after it received takedown notices from YouTube.
Moneywise has said,
“The Impugned Order also fails to recognize that the Plaintiff is pursuing the defamation claim not only on behalf of him, but also on behalf of the “his family name concerning the case of Sterling Biotech Limited and bank fraud”. This effectively means that the Plaintiff is seeking reliefs on behalf of himself, his family, and Sterling Biotech Limited, even though no other family member or authorised representative of Sterling Biotech Limited is part of the Suit,”
The appeal further argues that the Civil Judge’s ex parte injunction effectively suppresses any form of reporting, publication, or criticism by Moneywise and other media outlets regarding the Sandesaras and the Sterling Biotech bank fraud case.
Representatives for Moneywise Media LLP: Advocates Apar Gupta, Indumugi C, Naman Kumar, and Avanti Deshpande appeared for the appellant.
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