Delhi High Court directs Pradeep Poonia to take down tweets, YouTube videos against WhiteHat Jr

The Delhi High Court, on Monday, directed Pradeep Poonia to take down certain tweets and YouTube videos against WhiteHat Jr following a defamation suit by the kids coding platform (Karan Bajaj & Anr vs Pradeep Poonia).

. A single-judge Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta specifically directed Poonia not to comment on the number or quality of teachers at WhiteHat Jr without details about the teachers’ education or their professional backgrounds.

. In the interim order, the Court also restrained Poonia from unauthorizedly accessing or hacking into the internal communication platform of WhiteHat Jr and displaying it to the world at large.

. Poonia himself undertook not to share or telecast any of the copyrighted material of WhiteHat Jr in the meantime.

. Poonia has also been directed to stop using the name "WhiteHatSnr" for his YouTube channel.

. The interim order was passed in a suit preferred by WhiteHat Jr and its founder Karan Bajaj (plaintiffs) against Poonia.

. The suit is directed against the allegedly defamatory comments made by Poonia about Karan Bajaj.

. The suit also alleges mischief and invasion of privacy as well as trademark infringement, passing off and dilution of the WhiteHat Jr trademarks, copyright etc.

. As per the plaintiffs, on or about early September 2020, Poonia started putting up posts on various social media platforms, making allegedly wild and baseless comments against them.

. The objective behind the content was to bring the WhiteHat Jr business down.

. "(Poonia) has demonstrated that he is willing to go to any lengths towards fulfilling this objective, including displaying private employee information including mobile numbers of Plaintiff No. 2’s (WhiteHat Jr) employees and hacking into Plaintiff No. 2’s system and concocting baseless claims of threat to his life from the Plaintiffs ", the plea asserted.

. The court was also informed that Poonia ran a dedicated Telegram channel with the intent to attack the plaintiffs and relentlessly interfere in their day to day business.

. The plaintiffs pointed out that Poonia went to the extent of equating the plaintiffs’ acts of teaching children coding with "child sexual abuse", accusing them of running a "ponzi scheme", "pyramid scheme" and "EMI scam", and calling their teachers as "housewives" with no qualification.

. It was also alleged that Poonia hacked into WhiteHat Jr's internal business communications platform to access confidential employee communications, even passwords of CEO, and put them in the public domain by repeatedly live-streaming the contents on YouTube.

. In defence, Poonia argued that none of his comments and videos amounted to defamation and were not malicious. It was submitted that Poonia was not carrying on any commercial activity by using the trademark ‘Whitehat Sr’ or the similar trademark for the purposes of business or profit making.

. After hearing the parties at length, the court issued summons in the suit and sought Poonia's reply.

. The noted that as per the plaint, Poonia had prima facie logged into the system of WhiteHat Jr and even live streamed it.

. The Court opined that although prima facie adjudication on various disputed questions of facts required Poonia's affidavit, certain tweets warranted passing an ad interim injunction.

. The matter will be heard next on January 6.

. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi with Advocates Rajshekhar Rao, Shwetasree Majumder, Diva Arora, Vasundhara Majithia and Eva Bishwal appeared for WhiteHat Jr.

. Poonia was represented by Advocate Swathi Sukumar and Advocate Satyajit Saran, Naveen Nagarjuna .

. Read the Order:

Delhi High Court directs Pradeep Poonia to take down tweets, YouTube videos against WhiteHat Jr

Aditi Singh

Related Stories