Delhi High Court: In a Public Interest litigation filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution seeking to direct the respondents to remove the alleged audio/video recording of the Court proceedings dated 28-03-2024, which took place in the Court of Special Judge, CBI, Rouse Avenue Court, New Delhi, the Division Bench of Neena Bansal Krishna, and Amit Sharma, JJ., held that the Court proceeding recording was violative of Rule 3(vi) of Delhi High Court Video Conference Rules, 2021 and it cannot be permitted to remain in public domain. The Court directed he Social Media platforms namely X (formerly “Twitter”), Meta (formerly “Facebook”), Instagram and YouTube to remove forthwith the audio/video recording from their respective platforms.
In an instant case, the petitioner being an Advocate and Member of Bar of Delhi High Court, filed this petition in public interest of the citizens of the country. On 28-03-2024, Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, one of the accused in Delhi Liquor Policy scam was produced before the Court of Special Judge, CBI, New Delhi for production by the Law Enforcement Agency, i.e., Enforcement Directorate, wherein he narrated his entire story along with the facts which was about 09:00/09:30 minutes in the Court.
Several members of Aam Aadmi Party including members of various other opposition parties had intentionally and deliberately made an audio and video recording of Court proceedings which had been circulated on various social media platforms. Recording was circulated on X (formerly “Twitter”) with the #MoneyTrailExposedByKejriwal. The recording was reposted by Sunita Kejriwal; Promila Gupta Councilor; Vineeta Jain, Vice President of INC Rajasthan; and Arunesh Kumar Yadav, spokesperson of National Media in charge of the OBC Dept. of INC India (Indian National Congress).
The petitioner further submitted that he had filed a complaint with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube along with the URL links of the posts and requested them to remove these audio/video recording. Respondent 9 (YouTube) had replied that they had not been able to identify any violation of their Community Guidelines. All other Social Media had failed to respond.
Therefore, a prayer was made by the petitioner to restrain respondents from sharing, forwarding, reposting the proceedings of the Court dated 28-03-2024 and also made for setting up of SIT to conduct the investigation and to identify the individuals responsible for recording and sharing of audio/video recordings.
The Court after perusal of facts observed that, “the court proceeding recording is violative of Rule 3(vi) of Delhi High Court Video Conferencing Rules, 2021 and cannot be permitted to remain in public domain.”
The Court further directed the Social Media platforms X, Meta, Instagram, and YouTube to remove the audio/video recording from their respective platforms, and they should also ensure that the audio/video were not reuploaded on their platform till further orders.
The matter will next be listed on 09-07-2024.
[Vaibhav Singh v. Sunita Kejriwal, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 4404, decided on 15-06-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner: Amit Sharma, Advocate along with petitioner in person.
For Respondents: Tejas Karia, Varun Pathak, Amee Rana, Akhil Shandilya and Arunima Srivastava, Advocates for R-8; Tushar Sannu, Sahaj Karan Singh, Manoviraj Singh, Advocates for R-11.
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