Delhi High Court orders deletion of "communal" posts on X against INC's Muhammad Ali Khan, wife

The Delhi High Court recently passed an ex-parte order directing the removal/ deletion of communally provocative posts on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) against Congress party's media coordinator Muhammad Ali Khan and his wife.

Pertinently, Justice Subramonium Prasad also restrained X and other unknown entities (John Doe defendants) from publishing, reposting, circulating or in any manner disseminating any defamatory, false, misleading, communally provocative or derogatory content about Khan and his wife (plaintiffs).

The judge said that the tweets flagged by Khan were communally provocative, profane and vulgar in nature which affects the dignity and personal lives of the plaintiffs.

"The content of the tweets are extremely derogatory and no human being with dignity and self-respect can live peacefully and with head held high if such scandalous, vulgar posts are circulated against them amongst the public at large," the order passed on April 15 noted.

The Court also flagged the fact that some of the posts threatened physical harm.

"What particularly worries this Court is a perusal of document No. 5, which contains a compilation of comments, some of which contain threats of physical and sexual violence. All of these posts have been gathering widespread attention from the general public, which is also attributable to the language used in the impugned content, which in the prima facie opinion of this Court, have been written in a way to garner more and more attention," the Court said.

Hence, it proceeded to order deletion of the posts flagged and also restrained X, certain accounts on X as well as general public from publishing any defamatory content against the plaintiffs.

"The Defendants, their agents, associates or any person acting on their behalf are restrained from publishing, reposting, circulating or in any manner disseminating any defamatory, false, misleading, communally provocative or derogatory content concerning the Plaintiffs," the order said.

X corp was directed to take down, disable access to and prevent further dissemination of the offending content and anonymous users were directed to remove/delete their posts.

The Court was hearing a plea by Khan and his wife seeking takedown of defamatory material against them and also seeking directions to prevent further dissemination of defamatory material targeting them.

They flagged various posts on X by handles “@Jhunjhunuwala_” and “@mujifren”.

They also alleged that unknown entities (John Doe defendants) including bots and coordinated troll accounts, were acting in concert with the two handles to publish and amplify such defamatory content.

They argued that there is a continuous, deliberate, escalating and coordinated pattern of defamatory, malicious, false and communally inflammatory conduct on part of the defendants by publishing, reposting and amplifying unlawful content against the plaintiffs on social media platforms.

They further contended that such malicious and per se defamatory content caused and continues to cause grave and irreparable harm to Khan's wife's reputation, dignity and professional standing by exposing her to sustained public hostility, harassment and targeted abuse.

After examining the social media posts, the Court concluded that substantial part of the content flagged was communally inflammatory.

"Perusal of the tweets reveals that a substantial amount of content includes statements that can be construed as communally inflammatory," the judge said.

The Court also expressed concerned that some of the posts contained threats of physical and sexual violence.

Hence, it ordered take down of all such content and also restrained publication of any new defamatory material.

"The defendants No. 2 to 4 are directed to remove/delete/take down the impugned posts, tweets and related content concerning the Plaintiff from the platform X (formerly Twitter) and any other platform where the same has been published or shared before, within three (3) days from the date of upload of this Order. The defendant No.1 is also directed to take down, disable access to and prevent further dissemination of the impugned content and any identical or similar content relating to the Plaintiffs. Any member of the public is also restrained from uploading the very same content on any social media platforms till the next date of hearing," the order said.

Senior Advocates Rajiv Nayar, Rebecca John and Prashanto Chandra Sen along with advocates Gaurav Gupta, Sarim Naved, Abhik Chimni, Kapil Madan, Omar Hoda, Jaspal Singh, Namrah Nasir, Eesha Bakshi, Uday Bhatia, Kamran Khan, Surya Kiran Singh, Ayesha Khan, Aviral Jain, Manjira Dasgupta, Prabhav Bahuguna, Naman Maheswari, Utkarsh Trivedi, Rupal Gupta, Shambhavi Khare and Nilanjan appeared for Khan and wife.

[Read Order]