Delhi High Court: In a suit filed by the plaintiffs seeking for a decree of permanent and mandatory injunction along with damages and other consequential reliefs., a Single Judge Bench of Vikas Mahajan, J., stated that it was trite law that an individual’s reputation was an integral part of his/her personality and could not be unjustly tarnished under the guise of freedom of speech. It is equally trite law that dignity and honour of an individual could not be allowed to be defamed on the ground of right of free speech and expression.
The Court was satisfied that the grave and irreparable loss and injury would be caused to the plaintiffs, if ad interim injunctive orders were not passed in their favour. The balance of convenience also lay in favour of the plaintiffs. Therefore, the Court stated that prima facie, plaintiffs had made out the case for grant of ad interim relief.
Background
In the present case, the plaintiffs were aggrieved by a video which was live streamed by Defendant 1 on his ‘X’ account wherein he uttered sexually explicit remarks against Harsh Beniwal (‘Plaintiff 1’), his mother and sister.
Plaintiff 1 was an Indian YouTuber, an Actor and Comedian who made his debut in the Indian Cinema with the movie ‘Student of the Year 2’. Similarly, Defendant 1 was also a YouTuber who was active on various social media platforms such as YouTube with 1.62 million subscribers; Instagram with 5.7 million followers and on ‘X’ with 408K followers.
Plaintiffs contended that on 16-09-2024, Plaintiff 1 posted a video on his YouTube Channel, featuring himself as the lead actor, and the said video was meant to be a funny roast video bearing resemblance with Defendant 1. The said video was duly accompanied with a disclaimer that it was purely a work of fiction and any resemblance to person living/dead was purely coincidental. The said video came to be shot solely as a parody and was only meant for entertainment.
Plaintiffs submitted that after posting the said video, Defendant 1 released a reaction video (‘impugned video’) through his official ‘X’ account wherein he targeted Plaintiff 1 and his family members by uttering sexually explicit remarks against his sister and mother. When the impugned video was released, it gathered a lot of public attention, and it immediately became viral all over the internet. The plaintiffs submitted that though the video became unavailable after 24 hours, but the same was still in circulation on different social media platforms as people who had watched the live streaming of the impugned video had recorded and circulated the same.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court after perusal of the transcript of the impugned video, stated that the same was extremely offensive, sexually explicit, foul and filthy utterances were made in the said video by Defendant 1 against the plaintiffs, which per se shocked the conscience of the court. The Court stated that it was trite law that an individual’s reputation was an integral part of his/her personality and could not be unjustly tarnished under the guise of freedom of speech. It was equally trite law that dignity and honour of an individual could not be allowed to be defamed on the ground of right of free speech and expression.
Therefore, the Court stated that prima facie, plaintiffs had made out the case for grant of ad interim relief. Further, the Court was satisfied that the grave and irreparable loss and injury would be caused to the plaintiffs, if ad interim injunctive orders were not passed in their favour. The balance of convenience also lay in favour of the plaintiffs.
The Court stated that firstly a direction might be given to the third-party uploaders of the video, to take down the said URLs and if in case, the said direction was not complied with, then the YouTube might be directed to take down/ delete/block the said URLs. The Court stated that since the personal information of the persons who have recorded and circulated the impugned video on different social media platforms was not in the knowledge of the plaintiffs, and, considering the nature of utterances made in the impugned video, it would be appropriate to direct YouTube, Instagram, X Corp (‘Defendants 2, 3 and 4 respectively’) to take down/delete/block the impugned URLS from their respective platforms.
Thus, the Court directed Defendants 2-4 to take down/delete / block the below mentioned URLs within the period of two weeks from today. The Court clarified that the observations made in the present case were prima facie for the consideration of ad-interim relief under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 by the plaintiffs.
The matter would next be listed on 21-03-2025.
[Harsh Beniwal v. Ajaz Khan, CS(OS) 917 of 2024, decided on 21-11-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Plaintiffs: Ankit Gupta, Mithil Malhotra and Anmol Gupta, Advocates;
For the Defendants: Rohan Ahuja, Shrutttima and Aiswarya Debadarshini, Advocates.
