Decide Plea To Remove Derogatory YouTube Videos Against Shirdi Sai Baba: Delhi High Court Asks Centre

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Union Government's Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) to decide complaints and an appeal seeking removal of several YouTube videos, and other online publications allegedly containing false, derogatory and inflammatory content concerning Shirdi Sai Baba.

The plea alleges that the content has the potential to promote religious hostility and communal disharmony.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said that the matter requires urgent consideration and said that she will be passing an order asking GAC to decide the plea within 7 or 10 days.

The Court also remarked that it will direct the Government to treat as a representation the plea filed by Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust, Shirdi.

Senior Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey appearing for the Petitioner said that despite filing a representation, YouTube has only filed a “stereotypical response” saying that a judicial order has to be obtained for takedown of the offending content.

After hearing the parties, the Court remarked:

“I will ask them to decide. Let this petition be treated as a representation in addition to the complaints lodged under the IT Rules 2021 and the appeal preferred before the GAC which remains unanswered.”

The Court ultimately said that an appropriate order will be passed in the matter.

The plea alleges that the social media platforms have failed to provide effective redressal despite the Trust identifying specific URLs, timestamps and objectionable portions of the impugned content.

The Trust has sought directions to YouTube to disable access to, remove, delist or otherwise make unavailable the identified videos and publications.

It has also sought directions restraining republication or re-upload of identical copies of the impugned material.

According to the petition, several YouTube channels began publishing the allegedly objectionable material around March. The Trust claims that the publications portray Sai Baba as “Chand Miyan”, a “Jihadi”, a British spy, murderer, rapist, dacoit and religious converter.

The petition states that the Trust approached YouTube's grievance redressal mechanism on July 15, 17 and 19 but YouTube rejected the complaints and the Trust was directed to approach the uploaders or obtain an order from the High Court.

The Trust thereafter submitted a representation to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on July 26 and filed an appeal before the Grievance Appellate Committee on July 29 which is pending.

The Trust is represented by Senior Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey, with Advocates Saurav Agrawal, Ravi Sharma, Prachi Dubey, Rupraj Banerjee, Satyam Sharma, Harsh Khabar, Tushar Nair, Anusha Sinha, Aarya Bhat, Khushi Arora and Devangana Mishra.

Title: SHRI SAIBABA SANSTHAN TRUST, SHIRDI v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS