Delhi High Court Rejects Sameer Wankhede's Defamation Suit Against Netflix Series 'Ba***ds of Bollywood'

The Delhi High Court on Thursday rejected the suit filed by IRS officer Sameer Wankhede over his allegedly defamatory portrayal in the Netflix series “Ba***ds of Bollywood” directed by Aryan Khan.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav refused to entertain the suit on grounds of jurisdiction and returned the plaint to Wankhede in order to approach the court of competent jurisdiction.

“The plaint is returned to the plaintiff to approach the Court of competent jurisdiction. Application of any stands dismissed,” the Court said.

The Court had framed two questions to be decided in the interim injunction application filed by Wankhede- one, whether the suit is maintainable in Delhi and two, whether the impugned depiction, when viewed as a whole in the context, prima facie crosses the threshold and turns from protected artistic expression into actionable harm to Wankhede's reputation.

Senior Advocate J Sai Deepak appeared for Wankhede. Senior Advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul represented Red Chillies Entertainment. Netflix was represented by Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayyar.

Deepak had suffered that the suit was maintainable in Delhi. He said that apart from residence of Wankhede's relatives here, the suit was maintainable in the national capital as departmental proceedings concerning Wankhede were pending in Delhi and that the media houses like Hindustan Times and Indian Express, who had published articles against him, are based here.

Seeking removal of the impugned portion from the episode, Deepak had said that every day the content is available, Wankhede is suffering irreparable harm.

On the other hand, Red Chillies Entertainment had opposed the territorial maintainability of the suit. Kaul appearing for the production company submitted that the suit lacked territorial jurisdiction, and should have been filed in Bombay, instead of Delhi. 

He said that since Wankhede resides in Bombay and Red Chillies' registered office is also present there, the correct jurisdiction for the filing of the suit should have been Bombay.

Kaul had submitted that merely because Wankhede alleges that things are posted on internet against him which have far reach will not be enough and that he will have to satisfy the test of defamation.

Netflix had opposed the interim injunction plea arguing that the threshold of defamation in such cases is very high which cannot be proved at an interlocutory stage.

Nayyar had submitted that the details about inquiries against Wankhede and extortion allegations have been in public domain and social media since 2022 and no action has been taken against such content.

He added that the theme of the show is to expose the Bollywood culture through satire and dark comedy, which cannot be injuncted in a defamation suit.

The suit names the following as defendants: Red Chillies Entertainment Private Limited, Netflix, X Corp (formerly Twitter), Google LLC, Meta Platforms, RPG Lifestyle Media Private Limited and John Doe.

Wankhede sought Rs. 2 crores as damages which will be donated to Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital for the treatment of Cancer patients.

The suit sought permanent and mandatory injunction against the production house and others, against the allegedly “false, malicious, and defamatory video” broadcasted in the series.

It was Wankhede's case that the Netflix series has been “deliberately conceptualised and executed” with the intent to malign his reputation in a “colourable and prejudicial manner”, especially when the case involving him and Aryan khan is pending and sub-judice before the Bombay High Court and the NDPS Special Court.

It was also averred that the series depicts a character making an “obscene gesture”, specifically, “showing a middle finger” after the character recites the slogan “Satyamev Jayate.”

This act, as per the suit, constituted a grave and sensitive violation of the provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, which attracts penal consequences under law.

The suit further contended that the content of the series is in contravention of various provisions of the Information Technology Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), as it seeks to outrage national sentiment through the use of obscene and offensive material.

Case Title: SAMEER DNYANDEV WANKHEDE v. RED CHILLIES ENTERTAINMENTS PVT. LTD. & ORS