'Are You Saying Housewives Are Uneducated?' Delhi High Court Asks Pradeep Poonia To Take Down Tweets Against WhiteHat Jr; Restrain Him From Commenting

Hearing coding-teaching platform WhiteHat Jr's $2.3 million suit defamation suit against one Pradeep Poonia, the Delhi High Court today came down sharply on the latter for his tweets against WhiteHat Jr's teachers stating that they were 'housewives'. A single judge bench of Justice Mukta Gupta today granted ad-interim injunction to WhiteHat Jr and founder Karan Bajaj against Pradeep Poonia, restraining him from commenting on the number or quality of teachers of WhiteHat Jr and from commenting on their educational or other professional background.Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi appeared for Karan Bajaj. Reacting sharply to Poonia's tweets on the quality of teachers, the Court said that while Poonia could engage in healthy discussions about the nature of WhiteHat's work, making claims against its teachers without having complete information was malicious and defamatory. "You are saying that their teachers are housewives, are you saying they are uneducated persons? How can you be so derogatory towards them? Of course, this is defamation." Poonia was also accused of putting in the public domain numbers of the teachers. Reacting strongly, Justice Gupta said, "Who are you to put their numbers in the public domain? Who has given you this right?" On Adv Swathi Sukumar's reference to a judgment to substantiate her contention that the statements of Poonia were not malicious, Justice Gupta stated, "Is this not malicious that you are stating their teachers are housewives? Even if they are housewives what is the problem if they're doing part-time jobs?" The Court also directed Poonia to take down specific tweets dated 12.09.2020 regarding the number of teachers at WhiteHat Jr, 5.09.2020 alleging WhiteHat to be a pyramid scheme, and other specific tweets dated 11.10.2020, 3.09.2020, 22.09.2020, 20.10.2020, 23.10.2020. It also restrained him from hacking or unauthorizedly accessing the internal communication platform SLACK and displaying communications and chats between WhiteHat and its employees on his YouTube channel, and directing him to take down the specific URL numbers from his YouTube channel called Pradeep Poonia 3.0. He has further been directed not to use, telecast or transmit any information received by hacking WhiteHat Jr's server. WhiteHat Jr also alleged that the channel WhiteHat Sr was an infringement of its trademark and that on searching WhiteHat Jr on Google, parents were often directed to the WhiteHat Sr page and this was resulting in losses to WhiteHat Jr. Adv Swathi Sukumar appearing for Pradeep Poonia, objected to the same stating that it could be given in writing that no money was being earned from WhiteHat Sr, and that Youtube's offer for revenue from WhiteHat Sr had already been turned down. However, the Court observed that the fact that it was causing a prima facie loss to WhiteHat Jr, which is a registered trademark, sufficed for the grant of ad interim injunction on the use of WhiteHat Sr. The High Court also directed WhiteHat to file URL numbers of videos it has demanded a Take-Down order against, stating that in the absence of the same the Court couldn't pass a vague order. The company's Founder, Karan Bajaj also claimed that Poonia has his personal account password and was misusing the same, on which Poonia stated he did not have the password but was subjecting himself to the ad interim injunction.Complete updates from the hearing are available in the twitter-thread embedded below :Delhi HC starts hearing Karan Bajaj's defamation matter against Pradeep Poonia.— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) November 23, 2020

'Are You Saying Housewives Are Uneducated?' Delhi High Court Asks Pradeep Poonia To Take Down Tweets Against WhiteHat Jr; Restrain Him From Commenting

Shreya Agarwal

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