The pressure group, Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Thursday agreed to take down social media posts targeting BJP leader and senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia, after the Delhi High Court (HC) cautioned the outfit against levelling allegations without proper verification.
A Bench of the HC, headed by Justice Tushar Rao Gedela on Thursday took a dim view of the posts shared by CJP mouthpiece Saurav Das, in which he had claimed that Bhatia had called Swatantra Bhardwaj a ‘dimagi naxal.’ During the hearing, Das and CJP co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka undertook to remove the posts within the upcoming 24 hours.
Gaurav Bhatia (Left) and Saurav Das (Right)
The court ruled that allegations should not be made without verifying the facts, while underscoring that young people have the right to express their views and protest.
Delhi HC calls for restraint in online criticism
The bench remarked, “Attacking certain things without verifying may not be correct,” adding that there were various ways of protesting and that expression sometimes needed to be conveyed in a more articulate manner.
The judge advised Das’s counsel that there were other ways of handling it and questioned why young people would want to spend time in court when they had other avenues to express their views.
The court made the observations while hearing a defamation suit filed by Bhatia against Das, Ranka, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and the outfit. The dispute ensued after Das shared an AI-generated image on ‘X’ on September 5, alleging that Bhatia had called Bhardwaj a ‘Dimagi Naxal.’
However, he deleted the post after Bhatia gave him 24 hours to take it down and issue an unconditional apology. Das later clarified on ‘X’ that the graphic was AI-generated and questioned Bhatia over whether he ‘disagreed’ with the statement attributed to him.
Court refuses to grant immediate injunction
During the hearing, the HC refused to immediately restrain Das and Ranka from posting content further, taking note of their undertaking to remove the disputed posts.
However, the court ordered ‘X’ and Meta to remove identical posts in the future if Bhatia flags them as inappropriate.
The bench also issued summons in the defamation suit and sought responses from Das, Ranka and Dipke. Advocate Nakul Gandhi represented Dipke in the hearing. The court remarked that while people have the right to criticise and lampoon public institutions, people too have a legitimate right to protect their reputation.
Bhatia had pleaded with the court to grant an injunction, pointing out that another tweet had allegedly been posted during the hearing. He contended that such conduct should not be treated leniently, particularly because the account in question has millions of followers.