Delhi High Court May Initiate Contempt Against YouTubers For Circulating Edited Video Targeting Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma

Delhi High Court judge, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma on Thursday said that she may pass an order against certain YouTubers who have been part of a "vilification campaign" against her and shared an edited video of her carrying "contemptuous" allegations.

Justice Sharma said so while initiating criminal contempt proceedings against AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Vinay Mishra, Durgesh Pathak and Saurabh Bharadwaj in the excise policy case.

The Court noted that they had posted defamatory, contemptuous and vilifying things against her and that a defamatory campaign was ran on social media.

As the Court concluded the pronouncement, SGI Tushar Mehta submitted that the narrative ran by the AAP leaders will continue even now, and that there would be interviews and videos will be made by many YouTube channels.

On this, the Court said that material is being collated against some YouTubers and that another contempt order may follow.

“We are collating materials against some YouTubers, and another order may follow,” the judge said.

Justice Sharma referred to a video which was edited and circulated on social media with claims that she said that whenever she attended BJP or RSS events, she gets promoted. Later, the video was found doctored and it was revealed that the judge was in fact speaking at a one-day legal workshop in a University in Varanasi.

On this, she said: “The post was published and it has as of now 1 lakh views and 3,000 reposts. The video pertains to a lecture in Varanasi university during a workshop. Video shared by the user Mr. Vishwakarna was selectively cropped. Only 59 secs clip was extracted from original video which was posted on FB account of the university. This edited video has created impression that this court got her promotions and is under influence of so and so. This person knew that he is editing the video. Fact check reports were also done which were conveniently ignored by the contemnors. Even the said college also issued statements that the video was edited.”

She also mentioned that the video was even ran by some YouTube channels and discussions were held.

Also Read: Delhi HC Initiates Criminal Contempt Against Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Vinay Mishra, Durgesh Pathak & Saurabh Bharadwaj