People Have Right To Know Who The Elected Representative Is Meeting Behind Closed Doors: Delhi HC Dismisses Sasikala Pushpa's Suit Against Facebook, YouTube

People have a right to know with whom their electoral representative is meeting behind closed doors and hobnobbing with, the Delhi High Court held on Tuesday. The observation by the High Court came while dismissing with cost a plea by erstwhile AIADMK leader Sasikala Pushpa that her image was being tarnished due to uploading of her allegedly morphed photos and videos with a man, other than her husband, on social media platforms. "Since the plaintiff was a political person representing her State i.e. Tamil Nadu, in Rajya Sabha in Delhi, whether not the photographs concerning her which are admittedly not obscene but are claimed to be defamatory and showing her in the company of her political rival, constituted information which public at large has a right to know about their representatives in Parliament and how can the Court restrain such news from being disseminated", the Court had enquired from the plaintiff. A suit was instituted in 2016 against (i) Facebook Inc., (ii) Google LLC, (iii) YouTube LLC, (iv) Union of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and (v) Union of India, Department of Telecommunications, for (a) permanent injunction restraining not only the defendants but other persons from publishing, broadcasting, distributing or disseminating in any form whatsoever any defamatory material ―including the purported photographs/video/audio messages, relating to or arising from, in connection with any alleged acts or behaviour relatable to the plaintiff; and, (b) mandatory injunction directing the defendants and all others to remove/delete the false, concocted and fabricated photographs/videos/audio messages or any other material aforesaid. "The plaintiff has not made out a case for putting her claim, of the impugned photographs being morphed, forged and fabricated, to trial...(Alternatively), Section 66-A of the IT Act was struck down in entirety, being violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India and not saved under Article 19(2). It thus follows that merely because any information on the internet is offensive or causes announce, inconvenience, danger etc. to a person does not entitle that person to call upon the intermediary to remove that information/content or to disable access thereto and the intermediary is not liable to do so", opined the bench. The judgment narrates that the plaintiff along with the plaint has only filed four photographs in a sealed envelope. The first photograph appeared to be from a newspaper or a click shot of a news channel, in turn having three photo frames and one of which is of the plaintiff alone and the other two besides the plaintiff also depict a man in what appears to be a private garden of a house. The second photograph is again of the plaintiff with the said man inside a room and also shows half eaten food and an empty bottle of water. The third photograph is a repeat of one of the three frames in the first photograph. The fourth photograph is of the said man sitting on a chair and holding a cell phone with the plaintiff bending behind him and pointing something in the phone, again in a private garden of a house. "I may mention that none of the said photographs would classify as obscene or showing the plaintiff and the man in any compromising or scandalising position, though indeed show both smiling and happy in the company of each other", observed the Single Judge. "At least in one of the frames of the first photograph, the plaintiff and the man appear to be posing for the photograph though other photographs may fall in the genre of those taken without the knowledge of the plaintiff and the man. I may clarify that the plaintiff is fully clothed in all the photographs and the man, in two of the frames of the first photograph is bare chest but which is nothing out of ordinary in the State to which the plaintiff belongs", the Court further remarked. The Single Bench iterated that it was further informed, though again not pleaded, that the man shown in the photographs along with the plaintiff belongs to DMK Party, a political rival of AIADMK Party to which the plaintiff belongs and is a member of; that the plaintiff is married to another person, and that though the photographs did not qualify as obscene but they were in the circumstances of the political rivalry and the plaintiff being married to another man, qualify as defamatory and pose a threat to the membership of the plaintiff of Rajya Sabha as a nominee of AIADMK. "It was contended that the photographs were not genuine. Alternatively, it was argued that the photographs even if were held to be genuine and taken with the consent of the plaintiff, uploading thereof on the social media platforms violated the privacy of the plaintiff", reads the judgment. The bench proceeded to comment that the factum of the plaintiff belonging to AIADMK Party, a regional political party of the State of Tamil Nadu and though as per own averments is widely known in the State of Tamil Nadu in...

People Have Right To Know Who The Elected Representative Is Meeting Behind Closed Doors: Delhi HC Dismisses Sasikala Pushpa's Suit Against Facebook, YouTube

Mehal Jain

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