Delhi High Court Seeks Wikipedia's Response On ANI's Fresh Plea For Interim Injunction In Defamation Suit

The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response of Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia platform, on a fresh plea filed by news agency ANI seeking interim injunction in the latter's suit over allegedly defamatory content published on the Wikipedia page titled “Asian News International”.

ANI has filed the fresh application for interim injunction pursuant to the liberty granted to it by the Supreme Court to approach the single judge afresh to seek the relief.

Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice on ANI's plea for interim injunction and granted three weeks' time to the defendants for filing a response.

Advocate Siddhant Kumar appeared for ANI. Wikipedia was represented by Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal.

As Sibal requested time for filing response to the plea, Justice Singh orally remarked that assuming ANI is right and the content is actually defamatory, then who suffers?

To this, Sibal responded that there was no urgency in the matter as the content has been there on ANI's Wikipedia page since 2019 and the suit has only been filed in 2024.

He said that Wikipedia is challenging the limitation, jurisdiction as well as maintainability of the plea.

“He files the suit in 2024 for something which has been since 2019. Now he says urgency…,” Sibal said.

Issuing notice on the plea, the Court listed the application for hearing on July 07.

The dispute began with a defamation suit filed by Asian News International (ANI) against Wikipedia, alleging that content on the Wikipedia page titled “Asian News International” was defamatory regarding its credibility and editorial policies. ANI sought damages of Rs. 2 crores and removal of the material.

In April, a coordinate bench had granted interim relief to ANI in the main defamation case and ordered Wikimedia to remove allegedly defamatory content from ANI's Wikipedia page titled “Asian News International.”

The High Court division bench upheld the order but partly stayed the single judge's directions, restraining enforcement of the order that directed Wikipedia to remove the protection status of the ANI page and to prevent users and administrators from publishing defamatory content.

However, the Supreme Court set aside the injunction orders passed by the Delhi High Court observing that the High Court's direction "to remove all false, misleading and defamatory content" was "very broadly worded" and not capable of being implemented.

In a related news, the Supreme Court has today set aside a division bench order which directed deletion of Wikipedia page on defamation proceedings initiated by ANI against Wikimedia on the ground that the page was prima facie contemptuous and amounted to interference in court proceedings.

Title: ANI v. Wikimedia Foundation & Ors.