Moneylife Moves Delhi Court Against Ex Parte Order To Remove Reports Linking Manoj Sandesara, Family To Sterling Biotech Case

Financial media platform Moneylife has filed an appeal before a Delhi Court against a lower court's ex parte order directing removal of content on Manoj Kesarichand Sandesara and his family to Sterling Biotech bank fraud case.

The appeal was listed yesterday before District Judge Vinod Kumar Meena of Tis Hazari Courts.

As Moneylife argued for stay of the impugned order, the Court issued notice in the plea and listed the case for arguments on April 29.

Moneywise Media LLP has filed the appeal against the order passed by the senior civil judge which had restrained Google LLC, Meta platforms and john does (unknown entities) from publishing further content on Sandesara.

The senior civil judge had directed Google LLC and Meta Platforms to de-index or de-list URLs of the impugned content from its search engine results till the pendency of his defamation suit.

While doing so, the judge took exception to the reporting of media houses and observed that media should strive for accuracy and objectivity in its reporting, avoiding sensationalism.

In its appeal, Moneylife has argued that it was never duly served with notice regarding the hearing, even though its details are available on its website and in the public domain, which can be obtained through ordinary due diligence.

“The Impugned Order has been passed in flagrant violation of the principles of natural justice, as it was issued without affording the Appellant an opportunity to be heard, thereby granting a blanket and ex parte injunction,” the appeal states.

It adds that passing such a “sweeping order”, without hearing Moneylife makes the Impugned Order per incuriam, manifestly erroneous, and unsustainable in law.

“The ex-parte ad-interim order providing interim injunctions against a whole swathe of published material effectively chokes any form of reporting, publication, or criticism by the Appellant and other defendants in the Suit concerning the “Plaintiff and his family name concerning the

case of Sterling Biotech Limited and bank fraud” from the internet. This is because the Impugned Order directed a take down of Impugned Content that is already available on the internet and identified in the Plaint, and “such other links not known to the Plaintiff relating the subject matter in issue from their respective website … from its search engine results”,” the appeal says.

Moneylife is represented by Advocates Apar Gupta, Indumugi C, Naman Kumar and Avanti Deshpande.