Delhi High Court orders takedown of derogatory content against cricketer Yuvraj Singh

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the takedown of online content flagged as violating the personality rights of former Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh.

Justice Jyoti Singh said that she is ordering the takedown of such derogatory content. However, the Court clarified that it would not issue a blanket direction covering future content at this stage. The Court said that appropriate directions for the takedown of future content can be issued as and when they are flagged.

"For now I am directing the takedown of URLs that are part of the suit. If there is anything that comes up, file your application and I extend injunction after seeing they are infringing," said the Court.

The Court added that it will direct the individuals who uploaded content flagged as derogatory to Singh to remove the URLs identified in his suit in a time-bound manner.

The Court suggested that if the content is not deleted by its uploaders within the given timeline, Singh can notify the social media platforms and other intermediaries for the removal of such content.

The intermediaries have been granted three weeks to file their responses.

The matter is next listed on November 13.

The Court passed the order on a suit filed by Singh seeking the protection of his personality rights, and the removal of online content found violating these rights.

Singh's counsel, Advocate Gaurav Bahl, submitted that several private defendants were commercially exploiting the cricketer's name and likeness by selling merchandise. He also contended that there was infringing content on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Flipkart and Amazon.

Reddit's counsel replied that the platform hosted only one post concerning Singh, which had been online for over two years.

Singh's counsel, however, contended that while the post was old, the comments "keep coming."

Reddit's counsel, meanwhile contended Singh's grievance about certain comments on a post about Singh's alleged views on women would fall within the realm of defamation rather than a personality rights claim.

The Court declined to consider the issue at this stage, noting that the relevant transcript of the post had not been placed on record.

"Then you will have to wait. You should have given the transcript at least. This has been there for last 2 years. You leave everything for the judge to do. You will have to leave this aside for the moment. You file your response on this," said the Court.

In his suit, Singh also relied on previous orders protecting the personality rights of cricketers Abhishek Sharma, Gautam Gambhir and Sunil Gavaskar to seek similar reliefs.

The Court today ordered the takedown of certain posts flagged by Singh. However, it declined to direct online platforms to remove "similar or identical" content.

"Who decides if it is a similar content? It is a big debate. They are not adjudicators. They cannot decide infringing content," said the Court.

Advocates Gaurav Bahl, Anku Khanna, Arundhati Dhar, Harshita and Sachin Thakkar represented Yuvraj Singh.

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