Journalist Rajat Sharma Moves Delhi High Court Against X, Congress Leaders Alleging Non Compliance Of Order To Remove Tweets

Senior journalist Rajat Sharma on Friday moved an application before the Delhi High Court alleging that X, formerly Twitter, and Congress leaders Ragini Nayak, Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera disobeyed the order directing them to remove “defamatory tweets” posted against him.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora issued notice in the application filed by Sharma in his defamation suit and sought response of X and Congress leaders.

The defamation suit was filed after Congress leaders alleged that Rajat Sharma used abusive language on air during a show on the election result day.

On June 14, a coordinate bench ordered the Congress leaders as well as X to remove the social media posts within seven days in terms of the Intermediary Guidelines.

Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar appearing for Sharma told court that the three Congress leaders have not yet complied with the order despite communications being written to them.

He submitted that X also did not comply with the order and filed an appeal before the division bench but no stay was granted and it was asked to comply with the order.

Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao appeared for X and said that the social media platform has complied with the order as on late evening of July 03. However, Nayar said that the compliance is partial ad the viewing of the posts has been disabled within India but can be viewed outside India.

“He is the highest journalist. He has 11.2 million followers. If the order is restricted only in India then what is my reputation left? It is international reputation,” Nayar said.

He further said that the partial compliance of the order by X was in teeth of the judgment of a coordinate bench in Swami Ramdev v. Facebook INC wherein it was held that so long as either the uploading takes place from India or the information/data is located in India on a computer resource, Indian courts would have the jurisdiction to pass global injunctions.

Nayar submitted that since in the facts of the case, the impugned tweets were uploaded by the Congress leaders with an IP address within India, they ought to have been disabled on a global basis.

While issuing notice in the application, the court granted two weeks time to X and Congress leaders to file their replies and further two weeks time for filing of rejoinder, if any.

Last month, the single judge had allowed Sharma's interim injunction application. “…it is directed that the X Posts/Tweets which have not been removed, be removed within seven days by defendants in terms of the Intermediary Guidelines,” the court had directed.

The controversy arose after Congress national spokesperson Ragini Nayak accused Sharma of abusing her on national television on the counting day of 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Title: Rajat Sharma v. X Corp & Ors.