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New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to pass any blanket order for removal of defamatory content and protecting the personality rights of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament (MP) Raghav Chadha.
Court orders limited removals
Justice Subramonium Prasad held that the case did not, at this stage, involve a violation of personality rights. However, the judge directed the removal of five posts that it found to be prima facie defamatory.
"I have ordered the removal of 5 documents. Rest of the content is not defamatory," the judge said, as quoted by Bar and Bench.
Chadha had objected to posts on social media alleging that he had “sold himself for money”.
Court's earlier observations
The court had expressed reservations about the maintainability of the personality rights claim during the previous hearing on May 21. The court observed that the dispute appeared to concern criticism of a political leader’s decisions rather than the unauthorised commercial exploitation of his identity.
"See, the point is this, sir. The first impression in my mind. Prima facie, there is no personality right involved in this case. A decision taken by you in a political arena is being criticised... Undoubtedly, right from independence, we have grown up seeing RK Laxman’s cartoons. The way criticisms are made of decisions taken. Probably at that time, social media had not gone to that extent. Now it has gone to a greater extent," the Court said.
Chadha had sought an injunction against AI-generated deepfakes, manipulated videos, synthetic voice cloning, morphed images, fabricated speeches and other deceptive digital content allegedly circulated on social media following his switch from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to the BJP this year.
