The court order in the defamation case against Gokhale raises an interesting question of possible overlap with the IT Rules and its many requirements. The Delhi High Court directed activist Saket Gokhale to remove tweets 'defaming' former assistant secretary-general to the United Nations Lakshmi Puri. Gokhale in his tweets, which have now been deleted, had made allegations about the sources of income of Puri and her husband, Union minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri. Why this matters? The ruling comes at a time when content on social media platforms is under scrutiny more than ever due to the possible invocation of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. In the past two months, several cases have been registered against a few people and micro-blogging site Twitter for allegedly not taking action against unlawful content on the platform. For instance, the Ghaziabad Police registered a case against a few Congress politicians and media outlets such as The Wire for posting a viral video that showed an elderly Muslim man being assaulted. The present case at the Delhi High Court pertains to tweets Gokhale made on June 13 and June 26, wherein he made reference to properties allegedly purchased by Lakshmi Puri in Switzerland and also referred to the Union minister. Puri, through her counsel Karanjawala and Co, had filed a defamation suit seeking Rs 5 crore in damages from Gokhale. In these circumstances, the plaintiff has filed the present suit before this Court, seeking a…
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Activist did not do due diligence in seeking clarification: Delhi High Court in Saket Gokhale vs Lakshmi Puri case
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