Delhi High Court has issued notice to Google, Facebook, and Twitter to take down the objectionable and defaming posts against the suspended IAS officer in context to the allegations leveled by a woman.
The court has also directed the woman to avoid posting any kind of news to defame the man on any newspaper, website, news channel including Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. The matter has been listed for further hearing on August 31.
“Considering the arguments made in the plaint (by the man) and the application as also the documents filed therewith, this court finds that the plaintiff (man) has made out a prima facie case in his favour and in case no ad-interim ex parte injunction is granted, the plaintiff would suffer an irreparable loss. The balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff,” said Justice Mukta while passing the order.
“Issue summons in the suit and notice in the application to the defendants,” stated the order. IAS officer has sought compensation to recover the damage caused by defaming him, besides permanent and mandatory injunction.
The man came in contact with the woman in 2017 through Facebook while he was serving as a Government delegation in Mexico. She sent him friend requests a number of times and then finally he accepted.
The plaint claimed that he had communicated the woman about his marriage. He met her in the hospital where he was staying and then in February 2018, the woman started asking for money. He also alleged that the woman used verbal abuse, physical assault, and suicide threat to extort money.
The plaint claimed that the woman has demanded Rs 20 crore and asked him to buy a flat for her. She also forced him to transfer his Ahmedabad house in her name.
The man also mentioned in his plaint that the woman has lodged a complaint with Crime Against Women Cell and National Human Rights Commission which was later proven false after thorough investigation.
The woman had conducted online campaigns against the man on various social media platforms. The suspended IAS officer has then approached the Delhi High Court to issue the directions to the woman to delete those posts.
“Considering the nature of posts put against the plaintiff, defendant No. 2-Google LLC is directed to take down/ disable the posts/ links from the country domain,” stated the court in its July 15 order.
The court has also directed Twitter to take down all the objectionable posts/links from the country domain and also directed the man to provide the eight necessary URLs of those defaming posts which were mentioned in the plaint documents.
“The defendant No. 4-Facebook Inc. in the meantime is also directed to take down the posts from Facebook as mentioned in the plaint within one week from the date of intimation of the order,” stated the ruling.
The counsel appearing for US-based Google LLC told that all the articles and posts are of the newspapers’ articles or news channels’ reports and their authenticity lies with the news sources only. Google submitted that they may also be impleaded as the parties in the suit.
