Delhi HC to hear plea on removing anti-Ramdev links on May 10

New Delhi, March 21 The Delhi High Court has agreed to hear on May 10 a batch of pleas filed by Google and social media giants Facebook and Twitter challenging a single-judge order asking them to globally remove link of a video containing defamatory contents against yoga guru Swami Ramdev.

A division bench of Justices Rajiv Shakdher and Jasmeet Singh, while posting the matter to May 10, directed the parties to file written submissions at least three days before the next hearing. The bench also said that the earlier interim order, in which it was directed not to take any contempt proceedings against the appellants, will continue.

The matter came before the present bench after Justice Vipin Sanghi had recused himself from hearing the pleas of the IT giants last month.

Earlier in November 2019, a single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court had directed Facebook to globally remove, block or disable links to a video containing defamatory allegations against yoga guru Ramdev.

The court order had come while hearing a plea by Ramdev seeking global restraint order against Facebook, Google, its subsidiary YouTube, and Twitter from carrying content related to a book.

The IT giants had said that while they have no objection to blocking the URLs and disabling the same, insofar as access in India is concerned, they were opposed to removal/blocking/disabling the defamatory content on a global basis.

In the last hearing, Facebook's counsel had requested the court to restrain Ramdev from initiating contempt action against it till the appeal was pending.