Delhi High Court restrains man from making derogatory comments against upGrad

The Delhi High Court recently restrained a man named Lavangiri Ansar Basha from posting any derogatory words, such as “fraud” and “scam,” against the EdTech platform upGrad [Upgrad Education Private Limited v Lavangiri Ansar Basha and Ors]. 

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora passed the injunction order on July 25, stating that it will remain in force till August 22 when the matter will be heard next. 

“Since, defendant no. 1 [Basha] has elected to not be present at hearing today, until the next date of hearing, defendant no. 1 is restrained from uploading any social media post or videos on social media platforms using the plaintiff’s trademark “upGrad” or using any explicit or abusive against the plaintiff, its management and its employees,” the court ordered. 

In a series of posts on his social media accounts, Basha accused upGrad of misleading students and providing substandard content. 

He said that in one instance, because of a course shutdown, over 700 students were left stranded. 

Basha said that he had paid ₹4 lakh for the Golden Gate University program and invested a year to secure an F1 visa, but upGrad failed to fulfil the promises made by them. 

Meanwhile, upGrad has asked the High Court to restrain Basha from making these defamatory and derogatory comments. 

It stated that even when the suit was served upon him, he uploaded another defamatory post on LinkedIn mocking the legal action. 

The Court was told that Basha has approached the District Consumer Forum, Kapda District, Andhra Pradesh, and the issues of alleged deficiency of their service are pending adjudication in those proceedings. 

Further, upGrad said that it has offered to refund the entire fees received from Basha to amicably resolve the issue, but he has rejected the offer. 

After considering the case, the Court observed that the existence of a commercial dispute between the two parties cannot justify posting abusive comments against upGrad, and the right to fair comment does not include the right to abuse. 

“The defendant no. 1 in its post has used the plaintiff’s mark “upGrad” as a hashtag and has simultaneously created alike hashtags using part of the plaintiff’s mark by joining it with derogatory words like ‘scam’ and ‘fraud’. The intent of defendant no. 1 to disparage the plaintiff’s mark is writ large,” the Court said. 

Therefore, it passed the injunction order. 

Senior Advocate Gaurav Pachnanda, along with advocates Mohit Goel, Sidhant Goel, Deepankar Mishra, Kartikeya Tandon and Nikita Jaitley of Sim and San appeared for upGrad.

[Read Order]