Delhi High Court restrains Vivek Bindra's YouTube channel partner from making defamatory allegations against Sandeep Maheshwari

The Delhi High Court on Monday restrained Vikash Kotnala, the YouTube channel partner of entrepreneur Vivek Bindra from posting any defamatory/ disparaging video or material against YouTuber and motivational speaker Sandeep Maheshwari..Justice Prateek Jalan passed the order after coming to a prima facie conclusion that there was a link between Kotnala and Bindra, and that Kotnala's videos amount to circumventing a civil court order which had restrained both Maheshwari and Bindra from posting defamatory material against each other. On December 22, 2023, a civil court in Faridabad had restrained both Maheshwari and Bindra from making defamatory allegations against each other. The order was passed on a case filed by Bindra. .Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi appeared for Maheshwari and argued that Kotnala has been propped by Bindra to make the allegations against Maheshwari.Reference was made to two videos posted by Kotnala where he alleged that Maheshwari was trying to extort money from Bindra and that he (Maheshwari) was using students to oust a competitor (Bindra) from the market.The High Court was told that even though Bindra is a defendant in the case, no order is being sought against him since both Bindra and Maheshwari are bound by the civil court's order. .While hearing the case, Justice Jalan remarked that social media is a strange world and the discourse has gone down severely while the two rivals fight out their battles"I don’t mean any disrespect, but this is some sort of war that is starting on these YouTube channels. It is not that I am seeing this for the first time. There seems to be a very low level of discourse during this fighting between some some rivals," the Bench remarked. .Finally, the Court concluded that Maheshwari had made a prima facie case and that irreparable harm would be caused if an injunction order was not passed.It, therefore, passed an injunction order against Kotnala. “I am of the view that the publication of material by Defendant No 3 (Kotnala) who claims to be channel partner of D2 (company owned by Bindra) has the effect of circumventing the injunction granted by the civil court and has the potential to cause irreparable prejudice to the Plaintiff (Maheshwari) who has also been subjected to injunction. Balance of convenience is also in the plaintiff’s favour… Till the next date of hearing, Defendant No 3 is restrained from publishing any defamatory/disparaging video against the plaintiff on any online or offline mode in line with the orders passed by the civil court,” the Court ordered. .Maheshwari and Bindra have been engaged in a war of words since December 11, 2023, when the former released a video titled ‘Big Scam Exposed’. While the video did not name Bindra, social media users made the connection.The allegation was that Bindra was running a scam and fooling young people by providing a 10-day MBA course. In a few days, Maheshwari’s video garnered millions of views (7 million as of today). Soon after this, Maheshwari claimed that he was being pressured to take down the video and that goons were sent to his house as well.Bindra, however, denied any wrongdoing and released a video on his YouTube channel answering Maheshwari’s allegations. This video has been viewed nearly 4 million times..Both Maheshwari and Bindra have huge social media followings and are very popular YouTube channels. While Maheshwari has over 28 million subscribers, Bindra’s channel has been subscribed by over 21 million people..Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi along with advocates Mumtaz Bhalla, Karan Dev Chopra, Neeraj Malik, Simran Kaur, Anush Joshi Shreya Sethi appeared for Sandeep Maheshwari. .[Read Order]