The Delhi High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on IRS officer Sameer Wankhede’s plea seeking an interim injunction to take down the web series The Bads of Bollywood*, produced by Shah Rukh Khan-owned Red Chillies Entertainment and streamed on Netflix. Wankhede has alleged that the series is defamatory and deliberately targets him.
Justice Purushaindra Kaurav reserved the order after hearing arguments from all parties and framed two key questions for consideration at this stage:
- Whether the defamation suit is maintainable in Delhi.
- Whether the impugned depiction, when viewed in its full context, crosses the threshold from protected artistic expression into actionable harm to Wankhede’s reputation.
Wankhede’s counsel submitted that the suit is maintainable in the national capital because several relatives who viewed the show live in Delhi, departmental proceedings against him are pending here, and many media houses that carried reports about him are based in the city.
He reiterated that the depiction in the series damages his reputation and was allegedly created to “settle personal scores” after the arrest of Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in the 2021 drugs case.
Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix strongly opposed the plea, arguing that Delhi courts lack territorial jurisdiction and the suit should have been filed in Mumbai, where both Wankhede and Red Chillies are based. Red Chillies termed the move “forum shopping”.
Netflix said the show was a satirical portrayal of Bollywood culture, involving dark humour and parody, and cannot be injuncted in a defamation suit, especially at an interim stage when the threshold for stopping artistic expression is “very high”.
The platform noted that Wankhede himself admitted the impugned scene was satire and urged that he “should not be oversensitive about a one-and-a-half-minute satire scene”.
Red Chillies submitted in its reply that the series is a legitimate satire touching upon themes such as nepotism, paparazzi culture, adultery and the struggles of newcomers. It stated that satire and parody are protected artistic forms and cannot constitute defamation unless they clearly cross legal boundaries.
Wankhede, however, claimed in his rejoinder that the “defamatory content” was intentionally orchestrated by Aryan Khan, who has writing and directorial credits on the show, to malign him.
Wankhede has sought Rs 2 crore in damages from Red Chillies and Netflix, which he says he intends to donate to the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital. He has also sought removal of the series from all platforms.
Earlier, the High Court had issued notices to Red Chillies, Netflix, X Corp, Google, Meta, RPSG Lifestyle Media, and several unknown parties (John Doe) to respond within seven days.
The plea also alleges that the series erodes public faith in anti-drug enforcement agencies by portraying them in a distorted manner. It points to a scene where a character shows the middle finger after reciting “Satyamev Jayate”, claiming this violates the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.
The court has now reserved its order on the interim injunction.
