Social media intermediaries on Tuesday told the Delhi High Court that Baba Ramdev’s personality rights suit also seeks directions for the removal of parody, satire, political comments, news reports and fact-checks..The lawyers appearing for the social media platforms said that passing such orders would violate citizens' right to freedom of speech. Some of the content sought to be taken down includes videos of Ramdev riding an elephant, posts showing him lying before an allopathic doctor for treatment and one referring to petrol prices. They said that such expressions are protected under the law. Counsel appearing for X stated that Ramdev has referred 16 URLs on X, of which 14 have already been removed. He said that the users that Ramdev has flagged include an X user who has changed his name to Karl Marx. “So, unless Karl Marx files for personality rights, I think the plaintiff [Ramdev] is satisfied," the counsel said. Meanwhile, advocate Varun Pathak appeared for Meta and stated that while they have no problem in removing egregious content, news reporting cannot be injuncted under personality rights. "Egregious content we have no problem in removing, but the question is if a news channel reports falsely against the plaintiff, does that give him a personality right?” Pathak added. The intermediaries also opposed any global blocking orders or dynamic injunction (proactive removal of content by intermediaries) in the case. However, Justice Jyoti Singh noted that there was no prayer for a dynamic injunction and that the Court is not considering that either. .Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar appeared for Ramdev today and opposed the submissions made by the social media intermediaries. He said that fairness is expected from social media platforms, but in this case, the intermediaries were raising objections to the removal of defamatory and disparaging content.“In every case, the intermediary is fairer, suddenly in this case…They [infringers] have used my image,” he said. Nayar also said that the posts he is asking to be removed are disparaging. “Wherever there is disparagement affecting my personality rights, I am saying they should be taken down. I am shown that I am lying down and my chyawanprash is inducing me to go to allopathy,” he said. .After hearing the case for some time, Justice Singh noted that there was disagreement between Ramdev's lawyer and the social media intermediaries on the removal of content. Therefore, it directed Ramdev to give a list of content he wants removed and the social media intermediaries to file their objections to the same."I will go through them and decide," the Court said.The case will be heard on February 18..Ramdev has filed a personality rights suit seeking protection of his voice, image, likeness, unique style of discourse and delivery and other attribute exclusively identifiable with him.He has sought directions to stop unauthorised use of his names "Ramdev”, “Swami Ramdev” “, Baba Ramdev”, “Yog Guru Ramdev”, “Yog Guru Swami Ramdev” and other abbreviations, monikers or titles.The suit states that his name, visage and persona enjoy extraordinary goodwill and trust, which several entities are exploiting through deepfakes, false endorsements and unauthorised commercial associations.Further, the suit states that his persona was being used to create content for amusement and online engagement..The suit has been filed through Advocates Simranjeet Singh, Rishabh Pant and Osheen Verma of Athena Legal. Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Satya Ranjan Swain appeared for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY).Advocate Angad Singh Dugal represented Zee Media. .Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.
