The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed social media platform X Corp (formerly Twitter) to remove a video uploaded by influencer Yohan Tengra against pharmaceutical company Serum Institute of India and its CEO Adar Poonawalla [Serum Institute of India v. Yohan Tengra & Ors.].
Justice Gauri Godse said that the video was in violation of an earlier injunction order passed in a ₹100-crore defamation suit filed by Serum Institute and Poonawalla.
The Court also issued a show-cause notice under Order 39 Rule 2A of the Code of Civil Procedure against Tengra and three other defendants for deliberate disobedience of the court’s injunction order.
The underlying dispute stemmed from allegedly derogatory videos published by Tengra and his associates in 2022 accusing Serum Institute and Poonwalla of severe wrongdoing.
Serum Institute approached the court by way of a defamation suit, and in June 2023, the High Court restrained the defendants from circulating defamatory content.
However, the same evening, Tengra uploaded a fresh video explicitly refusing to comply with the court's directions. Serum approached the court citing non-compliance.
On September 29, Justice Godse refused to issue blanket directions to intermediaries to censor future uploads or suspend user accounts.
The Court observed that Section 79 of the Information Technology Act does not elevate intermediaries to super-censors or adjudicators.
The judge reasoned that legal "actual knowledge" under the IT Rules requires a court order targeting specific, identifiable material evaluated and held unlawful by a competent court.
Consequently, the Court granted an interlocutory mandatory injunction directing X Corp to take down the non-compliant video. It held that it was necessary to restore the status quo and compel the undoing of illegal acts.
Additionally, the bench strongly deprecated repeated allegations made against judges by Tengra and his counsel during the proceedings.
“It is unfortunate that sometimes the parties and their advocates, instead of following the procedure known to law, engage in making bald, baseless and derogatory remarks against other parties and the judges. Such conduct may result in ignoring the main cause and, in a given case, may defeat a genuine cause. Hence, such conduct needs to be deprecated,” the judge noted.
The matter will be heard next on October 27.
Advocates Karl Tamboly, Monisha Mane Bhangale, Bijal Vora and Chandragupta Patil briefed by Parinam Law Associates appeared for Serum Institute.
Advocates Nilesh Ojha, Shivam Gupta, Sumer Singh and Bhagawan Kasture appeared for Tengra.
Advocate Minhas Joshi appeared for Google LLC.
Advocates Mayur Khandeparkar, Nupur Jalan, Sanchli Sethi, Delzeen Dastoor, Parth Munde and Vedchetan Patil appeared for X Corp.
[Read order]