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A division bench of Justices Rajiv Shakdher and Jasmeet Singh of the Delhi High Court said today that it will hear on May 10 appeals by Meta, Google, and Twitter against a Single Judge bench order imposing a global injunction upon them against posting of, and for taking down of defamatory content against Ramdev Baba.

The Court has also allowed the continuation of an interim order protecting the digital platforms against contempt proceedings and taken on record the respondents submission that no reply needs to be filed in the matter.

The Court has directed the parties to file written submissions in not more than 5 pages.

Background

The digital giants have come in appeal against an order passed by Justice Pratibha M Singh in 2019 on a suit by Ramdev alleging defamation via remarks and videos, based on the book "Godman to Tycoon – the Untold Story of Baba Ramdev" being disseminated over the platforms, wherein in an unprecedented order granting relief to Ramdev, the bench had upheld the jurisdiction of Indian courts to pass global injunctions in such cases.

It had reasoned that jurisdiction existed as long as either the matter was uploaded from India or the information/data was located in India on a computer resource.

Twitter, Google, and Facebook were ordered to take down, remove block, restrict/ disable access, on a global basis, to all videos/ weblinks/URLs which were uploaded from I.P. addresses within India; and to block access and disable links/URLs uploaded from outside India, from being viewed in the Indian domain.

Ramdev was further granted liberty to approach the platforms wherever more such videos were uploaded and to pursue remedies in law in case they were found non-defamatory by the platforms.

Cause Title: Facebook Inc vs Swami Ramdev & Ors.