Senior Advocate and Bharatiya Janata (BJP) spokesman Gaurav Bhatia turned to the High Court in Delhi and urged to remove posts on social media, claiming to be slander and digitally changed, stemming from a widely circulated television debate video.
Justice Amit Bansal heard the matter on Tuesday 22 September. The court stated that it would pass through the material and on Thursday orders will come.
Bhatia, a popular face representing the ruling party during the debate, appeared on the television news program at the beginning of this month, where he was seen only the court – allegedly without pants or pajamas – during the introduction launched a flood of memes and jokes.
Was in shorts: Bhatia
Bhatia reported the court that September 12, while “in the comfort of (his) home”, unauthorized images and videos were shared online. He claimed that the material was slanderous, violated his privacy, and in some cases included inappropriate references to male genitals.
Raghav Awasthi advocate has appeared today for Bhatia and said he was wearing shorts and the cameraman showed the lower half of his body by mistake, according to legal news websites and benches. Awasthi said that contributions to social media related to the incident violate Bhatii’s privacy and undesirable comments must be removed, Bar and Bench said.
Bhatia’s slander was looking for the removal of Samajwadi Party Media Cell, news platforms Newslaundry, politics such as Saubh Bharadwaj Aam Aadmi and Ragini Nayak and journalists Abhisar Sharma.
He stressed that any content containing a vulgar language or such links should be removed and noted that “the reputation of a person is built over time”. He also claimed that some of the visuals were either generated or manipulated by AI.
The Court of Justice explained that although the court material referring to the private parts of Bhatia, etc., it will be a satirical or sarcastic content related to the incident will not be limited.
Bansal justice acknowledged that obscene remarks were unacceptable, but emphasized the need to distinguish between satire and defamation.
“Being in politics requires strong skin,” he noted, adding that the court must carefully assess what will exceed the line from satire to the offense.
Inherently offensive
The legal representative of YouTube stated that of the eight identified URLs, two were not related to this question. The court noted that any directive must first target the original content publisher, and only if they do not match, platforms such as YouTube would be responsible.
During the proceedings, he also questioned whether the conditions such as “Nanga” were offensive and raised concerns about the absence of moderation of content on certain channels.
The court also stated that when receiving an Ex Parte command, it must be very careful. “We must be very careful. The Supreme Court said in such cases you should not receive Ex Parte commands. We must be very careful,” the judge said.
(Tagstotranslate) Gaurav Bhatia
