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Informist, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked Wikimedia Foundation Inc., which hosts free online encyclopaedia platform Wikipedia, to delete the page dedicated to pending proceedings on a defamation suit filed by ANI Media Pvt. Ltd against the platform. The high court said that adverse comments were made against Judge Navin Chawla, which were prima facie contemptuous. 

 

"The said description of the impugned order and of the single judge is prima facie contemptuous and amounts to interference in the court proceedings and that too by an entity whose editors are defendants in the suit," said a division bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gadela. Accordingly, the court said the page should be taken down in 36 hours, and listed the case for hearing on Oct. 21. The page stated that "The judge in the case has threatened to order the government of India to shut down Wikipedia in the country."

 

The division bench of the high court was hearing an appeal by Wikimedia against a single-judge order that had issued a contempt notice to it. The notice was issued for not complying with the court's previous order asking to give ANI Media the subscriber details of the three people who had allegedly made "defamatory" edits to Wikipedia's web page on the news agency, referring to it as a "propaganda tool" for the current government.

 

On Sept. 5, Justice Navin Chawla had said Wikimedia's arguments had been heard by the court earlier as well in different cases and had been rejected. "I will impose contempt... It is not a question of Defendant No. 1 not being an entity in India. We will close your business transactions here. We will ask the government to block Wikipedia... Earlier also, you people have taken this argument. If you don't like India, please don't work in India," Justice Chawla had said.

 

The single judge was hearing a defamation suit filed by ANI Media against Wikipedia and its host Wikimedia Foundation over the alleged defamatory description of the news agency. ANI had sought to restrain Wikipedia from putting defamatory content against it on its platform, and remove the same. ANI is seeking damages of 20 mln rupees from the US non-profit organisation.

 

At the last hearing on Monday, ANI's counsel had informed the court that Wikimedia had justified the "defamatory" content by calling it fair. The counsel told the court that a dedicated page related to this case showed that the platform had an agenda against the news agency, and it shows that the party has scant regard for Indian courts. Thereafter, the high court had asked Wikimedia's counsel to take instructions regarding taking down the page.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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