The Delhi High Court has directed Congress leaders Ragini Nayak, Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera to immediately remove the 'derogatory tweets' against India TV Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Rajat Sharma by 7 pm today (July 12). Rajat Sharma had told the Delhi High Court that he was defamed by Congress leaders Ragini Nayak, Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera having falsely alleged that abusive language was used during his show.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora directed X Corp, formerly Twitter, to unblock the tweets in question, which the social media platform claimed to have geo-blocked, by 5 PM today. “The Defendant No. 1 shall immediately inform the Plaintiff and Defendant Nos. 4, 5 and 6 that the tweets have been unblocked. Upon being informed, Defendant Nos. 4 to 6 shall immediately delete the tweets within 1 hour of such unblocking by Defendant No. 1, latest by 5 PM on 12.07.2024,” the court said.
On June 14, a coordinate bench ordered the Congress leaders as well as X to remove the social media posts within seven days in terms of the Intermediary Guidelines. X Corp informed court that the tweets were geo blocked by it on July 04. However, the same were not deleted by the Congress leaders of which they were the authors.
What was the issue?
The controversy arose after Nayak accused Sharma of abusing her on national television during a debate on the show on the counting day of 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Sharma's counsel said while the debate was happening on the channel on the evening of June 4, the day when election results came, the Congress leaders started tweeting only on June 10 and 11. Senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing Sharma, contended that a clip of the show was being circulated in which an abuse had been inserted whereas the original footage does not contain any such content.
The court has also ordered the takedown of the YouTube video on Congress' YouTube channel in which Ragini Nayak held a press-conference and levelled the same allegations. Several other URLs related to the incident have also been ordered to be taken down in seven days.
