Lucknow Press
New Delhi. The Delhi High Court has directed Congress leaders Ragini Nayak, Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera to remove their ‘derogatory tweets’ against senior journalist Rajat Sharma by 7 pm on July 12 in compliance with the interim order passed on June 14.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora directed X Corp, formerly known as Twitter, to unblock the tweet in question by 5 pm today, which the social media platform claimed it had geo-blocked.
The court said that respondent number 1 should immediately inform the plaintiff and defendants number 4, 5 and 6 that the tweets have been unblocked. On being informed, defendants number 4 to 6 should immediately remove the tweets within 1 hour of being unblocked by respondent number 1, that is, by 7 pm on July 12. The defamation suit was filed after Congress leaders alleged that Rajat Sharma used abusive language on air during the show on the day of election results.
On June 14, the coordination bench ordered the Congress leaders as well as X to remove the social media posts within seven days as per the intermediary guidelines. X Corp informed the court that on July 04, it had blocked the tweets on Jio. However, they were not removed by the Congress leaders, whose authors they are. The counsel appearing for the Congress leaders gave directions that they will remove the social media posts in compliance with the interim injunction order, but the removal will not have any adverse effect on their rights and arguments on the merits of the case. Also, their right to repeal the order passed ex parte will be reserved.
The Congress leaders further said that they will delete the tweets as soon as they are unblocked by X Corp and that they have no intention of disobeying the interim injunction order. They further undertook that they will not post any further tweets about the videos identified by Sharma in the defamation suit or the debate broadcast on India TV channel until their challenge to the interim order or the application seeking quashing of the impugned order by Twitter is finally decided.
X Corp argued that to enable the Congress leaders to remove the tweets it would first have to unblock the URLs, which would require a 24-hour process. The court clarified that Sharma’s rights in his application for non-compliance of the interim injunction order will remain and will be followed by him. Similarly, the court said that X Corp’s rights and arguments in its application seeking quashing of the impugned order will not be affected by the removal.
In its application, X Corp said the video posted on social media platforms by Ragini Nayak, alleging that Sharma misbehaved with her on live TV, is “not edited or fabricated”. It said the video, which was also shared by Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera, matches India TV’s own raw footage as well as Rajat Sharma’s own filing in his defamation suit. It is therefore “prima facie authentic”. Last month, a single judge had allowed Sharma’s interim injunction application.
The court had directed, “It is directed that the x posts/tweets which have not been removed should be removed by the respondents within seven days in accordance with the intermediary guidelines. The controversy arose when Congress national spokesperson Ragini Nayak accused Sharma of misbehaving with her on national television on the day of counting of votes for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
