New Delhi: “The cyber world turns whispers into symphony,” Delhi High Court noted on Monday as it upheld summons issued to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in a criminal defamation case for retweeting an allegedly defamatory video in May 2018. It was circulated by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee.
Retweeting a social media post carrying defamatory content will amount to defamation under Section 499 of IPC, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said while refusing to quash the trial court’s 2019 order summoning the CM as an accused.
“In this evolving digital age, physical damage to someone’s reputation is not the only possibility, but it is the cyber world which now has taken over the real world, where if any defamatory statement is made, the effect of reputational harm is amplified,” the court observed. “In the realm of defamation, statements made in the physical world may resemble a mere whisper, but when echoed in the cyber domain, the impact magnifies exponentially.”
The court underlined that some sense of responsibility must be attached while retweeting content on social media about which a person does not have knowledge. “At times, it is difficult to erase the reputational injury from public memory, as the tweets may be deleted but perceptions are difficult to be deleted from the minds of the community.”
The AAP leader had challenged two orders of the trial court even as the high court had earlier stayed trial court proceedings in the case. A magistrate had summoned Kejriwal to appear before it in August 2019 after a criminal complaint by the founder of social media page “I Support Narendra Modi.” Complainant Vikas Sankrityayan alleged Kejriwal had retweeted the defamatory video.
Retweeting, the high court observed in its order, must attract penal, civil as well as tort action. When retweeting is done by political persons, including the chief minister, with bigger social media presence, the retweets become public endorsements that can be believed by the public, it added.
HC pointed out that reputational harm caused by virtue of retweeting defamatory content, by a person with a mere 10 followers, in contrast to another individual with a substantial following of over 10 million, would be different.
The court said online interaction on social media and sharing any post with others by retweeting it attracts the liability for the offence of defamation. If the AAP leader wishes to justify his act, it can be done at the stage of trial, it added.
Sankrityayan claimed the chief minister had retweeted without checking the authenticity of the video and tweets posted by Rathee.
Retweeting a social media post carrying defamatory content will amount to defamation under Section 499 of IPC, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said while refusing to quash the trial court’s 2019 order summoning the CM as an accused.
“In this evolving digital age, physical damage to someone’s reputation is not the only possibility, but it is the cyber world which now has taken over the real world, where if any defamatory statement is made, the effect of reputational harm is amplified,” the court observed. “In the realm of defamation, statements made in the physical world may resemble a mere whisper, but when echoed in the cyber domain, the impact magnifies exponentially.”
The court underlined that some sense of responsibility must be attached while retweeting content on social media about which a person does not have knowledge. “At times, it is difficult to erase the reputational injury from public memory, as the tweets may be deleted but perceptions are difficult to be deleted from the minds of the community.”
The AAP leader had challenged two orders of the trial court even as the high court had earlier stayed trial court proceedings in the case. A magistrate had summoned Kejriwal to appear before it in August 2019 after a criminal complaint by the founder of social media page “I Support Narendra Modi.” Complainant Vikas Sankrityayan alleged Kejriwal had retweeted the defamatory video.
Retweeting, the high court observed in its order, must attract penal, civil as well as tort action. When retweeting is done by political persons, including the chief minister, with bigger social media presence, the retweets become public endorsements that can be believed by the public, it added.
HC pointed out that reputational harm caused by virtue of retweeting defamatory content, by a person with a mere 10 followers, in contrast to another individual with a substantial following of over 10 million, would be different.
The court said online interaction on social media and sharing any post with others by retweeting it attracts the liability for the offence of defamation. If the AAP leader wishes to justify his act, it can be done at the stage of trial, it added.
Sankrityayan claimed the chief minister had retweeted without checking the authenticity of the video and tweets posted by Rathee.