Bengaluru Court Directs Social Media To Take Down Photo Used To Make Defamatory Claims Against Justices Surya Kant & Pardiwala

The court allowed the applications filed by petitioner Dipali Sikand and directed the defendants(who allegedly made and shared defamatory posts using the photo) to appear on August 18. The plaint has named Jagadeesh Laxman Singh Aka Jugie Singh, Siddharth Dey and Sonalika Kumar as individuals who allegedly made the objectionable posts. Social media companies Twitter Inc, Meta Platforms (which owns Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram), Linkedin Corporation are also added as defendants.

It was said that over the last few weeks, a particular photograph has gone viral on social media platforms where certain individuals have been wrongly identifying the persons in the photograph as Justice Surya Kant and Justice Pardiwala of the Supreme Court of India.

The photograph in question was shot at Mindescapes Club, near Ooty and Coonoor, owned by Ms. Dipali Sikand, when Mr. N. Ram (Indian Journalist and former Editor of The Hindu) and his wife Ms. Mariam Ram hosted a lunch for the following guests on July 01, 2022:

a) Dr. Palanivel Thiagarajan, current Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu.

b) Mr. Prakash Karat, a politician who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from 2005 to 2015.

c) Mrs. Brinda Karat, a politician who was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member on 11 April 2005 for West Bengal also the wife of Mr. Mr. Prakash Karat.

d) Mr. Prannoy Roy, an Indian economist and the executive chairperson of NDTV and

e) Mrs. Radhika Roy, an Indian Journalist, founder and executive co-chairperson of NDTV, also the wife of Mr. Prannoy Roy.

It is said that the group picture was shared by Dipali Sikand on her private Facebook and Linkedin page. However, in the wake of the statements made by Justice Surya Kant and Justice Pardiwala in the Nupur Sharma case, several individuals have used this photograph to wrongly identify the guests as the said judges and make allegations against them of dining with "naxal groups" and "communists" etc.

Sikand thus approached the court by filing a suit for defamation in which the court passed the John Doe order directing various social media platforms to take down defamatory and fallacious posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Whatsapp etc.

Last week, Mr.Ram had posted in his social media accounts that the group photo was used to make defamatory claims against judges.

The Plaintiff was represented by Chintan Chinnappa, Partner and he was assisted by Vishaka Nikkam, Basil Shibu and Siddharth Shandilya from Spectrum Legal, Bengaluru.

Case Title: DIPALI SIKAND And AGADEESH LAXMAN SINGH ALIAS JUGIE SINGH & others

Case No: O.S 4427/2022