The Delhi High Court issued notice to Union Minister Smriti Irani on Tuesday over a petition by micro-blogging site Twitter, seeking clarification in the order passed by the High Court on July 29, regarding removal of web links, which allegedly contained objectionable material against Irani and her daughter.
The order was passed by a Single-Judge Bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna on a petition filed by the social media giant, stating that the platform was bound to take down only that material, which was found to be defamatory on being provided with URLs by the plaintiff (Irani).
On July 29, the High Court had issued summons to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera, and Netta D’Souza, asking them to take down the tweets and other social media posts on allegations levelled against the plaintiff and her daughter.
Irani’s pending civil defamation suit
The High Court had further directed search engine Google, along with social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to remove the allegations, videos, posts, tweets, re-tweets, captions and taglines, besides the morphed pictures of the plaintiff and her daughter and the underlined material with such defamatory content or anything similar, including re-circulation of the same on their respective platforms.
In its application, Twitter contended that the order was to be directed against defendants 1 to 3 (Congress leaders) and not against the social media platform.
Irani’s Counsel sought time to respond to the application. The High Court granted him two weeks to file reply.
The High Court had ruled on July 29 that the plaintiff and her daughter were neither owners of a restaurant-cum-bar in Goa, nor a licence was ever issued in their favour.
The High Court also took note of the fact that the showcause notice issued by the Goa government was neither addressed to the Union Minister, nor to her family members.
It observed that the statements made by three Congress leaders against the mother-daughter duo seem to be “bogus with malicious intent”.
The three Congress leaders, along with others, conspired to ‘launch a tirade of false, scathing and belligerent personal attacks’ against Irani and her daughter, the High Court had ruled.
The leaders of the grand old party had alleged Irani and her daughter Zoish had links with upmarket restaurant ‘Silly Souls Café and Bar’ in Goa.
The BJP leader had filed a defamation suit against these leaders for allegedly making baseless and false accusations against her and her 18-year-old daughter.
The High Court had ruled that the statements made by Congress leaders were in the “nature of slander and seem to be bogus with malicious intent, only to garner the highest amount of viewership thereby intentionally subjecting the plaintiff to a great public ridicule.”
The High Court will hear the matter again on November 15, while August 18 has been fixed for hearing on the issue before the Registrar.