'Premature': Delhi Court Rejects Moneylife's Appeal Against Ex Parte Order To Remove Reports Linking Manoj Sandesara To Sterling Biotech Case
A Delhi Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal filed by journalist Sucheta Dalal's financial media platform Moneylife against an ex parte order directing removal of content linking Manoj Kesarichand Sandesara and his family to Sterling Biotech bank fraud case.
District Judge Vinod Kumar Meena of Tis Hazari Courts allowed the application filed by Sandesara seeking to dismiss Moneylife's appeal.
Without going into the length and breadth of merits of the impugned ex parte interim order, the Court observed that Moneylife is having an opportunity to be heard before the Trial Court before deciding the application under Order 39 Rule 1 & 2 of CPC finally.
The Court ruled that that the appeal was not maintainable at this stage, as Moneylife has the opportunity to be heard before the Trial Court.
“In view of above findings, the application filed by or on behalf of the respondent no.1 for seeking dismissal of the appeal filed by appellant to assail order dated 04.04.2026 is allowed,” the Court said.
It added that the appeal was nothing but pre-mature, as the application for interim injunction is still pending adjudication before the Trial Court and the 30 days period, as mandated under Order 39 Rule 3A of CPC, has yet not lapsed.
Moneylife had submitted on maintainability of the appeal, contending that the affexyed parties are free to opt for an appeal independent of other remedies available to them and that its right under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India is affected.
Moneywise Media LLP 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 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.
It added that passing such a “sweeping order”, without hearing Moneylife makes the Impugned Order per incuriam, manifestly erroneous, and unsustainable in law.
Moneylife is represented by Advocates Apar Gupta, Indumugi C, Naman Kumar and Avanti Deshpande.
Sandesara is represented by Advocates Tanmaya Mehta, Hemant Shah, Saurabh Pal and Saurabh Rajput.
Advocate Rohan Ahuja appeared for respondent no. 2; Advocates Vishesh Sharma and Nivedita Sudhir represented respondent no. 3.