Delhi HC issues summons to Abhijit Iyer Mitra, The Pamphlet, X, others on suit by CJP's Saurav Das over disclosure of his address

The Delhi High Court on Monday issued summons to right wing commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, media platform The Pamphlet, legal news platform Law Beat, social media accounts The Jaipur Dialogues and The Sunday Guardian (defendants) on a suit filed by Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) spokesperson Saurav Das against putting his residential address and personal information in public domain.

Justice Sachin Datta also issued notice to the defendants on the plea for interim injunction application as well and posted the case for further consideration after two weeks.

During the hearing, the Court was told that the tweets on X (formerly Twitter) revealing Das' address have been removed.

"Who is appearing for X? These links have been taken down? These links are no longer active?" the Bench asked.

The counsel for X confirmed the same.

The Court then proceeded to record the same in its order.

The matter will be heard next on September 14.

Das has sought damages of over ₹2 crore for violating his privacy.

He has also sought permanent injunctions restraining Iyer-Mitra, The Pamphlet, Law Beat, The Jaipur Dialogues and The Sunday Guardian from publishing, circulating or disclosing his residential address and directions to them to remove and disable public access to the videos and posts giving those details.

Directions have also been sought to X Corp and Google to take down the content revealing the information and to prevent further dissemination of the content.

Das' plea said that he has been living in a rented room on the ground floor of a Greater Kailash-I property since early 2025 and that representatives of The Pamphlet trespassed into the shared residential premises, recorded its interiors and published the footage on social media platform X on August 5.

The video, which allegedly disclosed his residential address, has garnered over 2.1 million views and was republished on August 10, it was stated.

According to Das' suit, Iyer-Mitra disclosed Das' address on a Law Beat programme by naming his neighbour and incorrectly stating the rent at around ₹7 lakh a month.

He stated that Iyer-Mitra subsequently published multiple posts containing the information. Das said he lodged a police complaint on August 5 and notified the defendants of the security risks, but the alleged disclosures continued.

"Nevertheless, the Plaintiff’s Residential Information continued to be published and recirculated by the Defendants. The repeated disclosures, viewed together with the Plaintiff’s prior exposure to violent threats, materially increases the possibility of his home being located by hostile persons and expose the Plaintiff, his family members other occupants of the premises to intimidation, harassment and physical violence," the suit stated.

Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal, appearing for Das, contended that people from The Pamphlet appeared on his property and posted a video and the same was reposted by Abhijit Iyer-Mitra.

Sibal also said that the videos have been taken down by X but it should remain that way.

"These are taken down by Twitter's own policy and they should remain that way," he said.

"You have filed this based on what? Right to privacy?" the Bench asked.

"The law is now settled and there are Press Council of India norms which says that the matter where a public person resides, their personal finances and parentage are not a subject matter of..." Sibal said.

"You refer to three things, they are in different compartments," the Bench replied.

"Puttaswamy (judgment) says information such as residential address, date of birth etc, there is no privacy right," said Senior Advocate Percival Billimoria on behalf of Abhijit Iyer-Mitra.

To this, Justice Datta said that Supreme Court's 1994 judgement in R Rajagopal v State of Tamil Nadu contains a specific paragraph on this aspect.

The Court eventually issued summons to the defendants and posted the case for further hearing on September 14.

The defendants were asked to file their replies within 10 days.

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