On Friday, the Delhi High Court served notices to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera, and Ragini Nayak following a plea by veteran journalist Rajat Sharma. Sharma accuses the politicians of failing to comply with a prior court order to remove certain social media posts deemed offensive towards him. The court has also directed social media company X Corp to respond to the allegations detailed in Sharma’s ongoing lawsuit.
Justice Manmeet P S Arora has scheduled the case for a further hearing on August 22, following a directive that the defendants submit their responses within two weeks of receiving their notices. The controversy centers on posts made by the Congress leaders, which allegedly include abusive language used by Sharma on his show during the announcement of Lok Sabha election results.
The interim order on June 14 required the removal of the contentious posts and videos from social media. However, according to Sharma’s legal team, compliance has been incomplete; while the posts were disabled within India on July 3, they remain accessible internationally. Sharma’s counsel argues that this partial compliance contradicts a prior judgment and maintains that the posts should be disabled globally, considering they originated from IP addresses within India.
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The application intensifies the legal stakes by urging the court to consider detaining the key managerial personnel of the defendants, should they fail to fully purge their contempt. Furthermore, it seeks an order to disclose and possibly attach the defendants’ declared properties as part of the compliance measures.
