NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday set aside Delhi high court’s order directing Wikimedia to remove all “defamatory and false” content on its webpage about ANI and said the order was “very broadly worded” and allowed the news agency to move HC again for removal of specific content.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said HC’s direction “to remove all false, misleading and defamatory content” was too broadly worded to be capable of being implemented. It said such a blanket injunction was not implementable and there was no clarity on who would decide whether the content was defamatory or not.
Advocate Sidhant Kumar, appearing for ANI, said he had no objection to HC order being set aside and sought that he be permitted to file a fresh application in HC for removal of specific content on Wikimedia’s webpage.
As Kumar raised a question on fast listing of the appeal filed by Wikimedia Foundation, the bench responded that it did not have the authority to decide listing of cases and it did not direct that the case be listed before it. The bench further said the SC registry, under the CJI, decided on when and before which bench a case was listed for hearing.
“We have no control over which cases are listed before us. If you are bold enough, then you should go to the Chief Justice and complain to him. Please do it, we will also support you,” the bench said. Senior advocate and SCBA president Kapil Sibal said he would accompany Kumar if he went to the CJI to raise the issue.
Noting that the petitioner had filed a voluminous appeal in the case, the bench said there was a growing tendency in SC to file bulky appeals by annexing documents which were not needed. The court said such practice should be stopped.
