The Delhi Excessive Courtroom on Tuesday granted interim aid to Himayani Puri, Union Minister Hardeep Puri’s daughter, in search of a world take down of posts linking her to American financier and little one intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Justice Mini Pushkarna ordered social media platforms like Twitter, Google, YouTube, Meta and LinkedIn and different john doe entities to take down the allegedly defamatory content material in opposition to the Cupboard Minister’s daughter.
The decide nevertheless clarified that in the interim the Courtroom will take into account take down of content material in India alone, because the ‘international takedown’ side is pending earlier than a division bench of the Excessive Courtroom.
“Contemplating that the matter concerning injunction at international degree is subject material of Division Bench, orders in that regard is probably not handed. It’s directed that the instructions handed right this moment are to be adopted inside India jurisdiction, Indian area. The current injunction order operates inside Indian area wrt movies and content material uploaded inside Indian jurisdiction and from IP addresses inside India. In as far as URLs and hyperlinks uploaded from outdoors India, defendants are directed to dam entry from being seen in India,” Justice Pushkarna ordered.
The matter is now listed for August 07.
Himayani Puri has filed a Rs. 10 crore defamation swimsuit in search of john doe order for taking down of the content material.
Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani showing for Himayani argued that the allegations in opposition to her are false and have been orchestrated merely as a result of she is the daughter of a Cupboard Minister. He argued that earlier, the Minister’s spouse was additionally focused with allegations of illegally buying abroad property.
As Jethmalani pressed for advert interim injunction, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar showing for Meta submitted that the platform can solely block the content material in India, and never globally.
Jethmalani argued that if the content material is uploaded from a pc gadget in India, then a world takedown order is permissible. “All uploaded from laptop gadgets inside India. That’s the take a look at. I’m a resident of New York. If there’s any importing from outdoors India then that must be thought of however whether it is uploaded from laptop gadgets inside India, a world takedown order is totally permissible,” he argued.
Nevertheless Datar contended that the difficulty of world takedown is pending earlier than a division bench of the Courtroom. “We function solely inside India. We’ll take down solely inside India. On international, we’ve taken stand that we will not do it globally and we’re contesting the difficulty. As an middleman I cant apply my thoughts and take it down. I can do solely on foundation of courtroom order or govt notification…It may possibly’t be a world blocking order…In the event that they want a world order, I’ll file my counter and argue,” he submitted.
The Courtroom then proceeded to difficulty summons within the swimsuit and observing {that a} prima facie case was made out in Himayani’s favour, granted interim injunction.
“Defendants 1-14 and john doe are restrained from publishing or circulating the contents, on any platform. Defendants 1-14 are directed to take away hyperlinks and urls of impugned content material. In case content material shouldn’t be taken down inside 24 hours, the defendants 15-18 shall take away and block entry to the posts, movies, articles and hyperlinks. Along with the aforementioned urls, the plaintiff is at liberty to tell platforms or intermediaries about subsequent urls concerning equivalent content material which shall be acted upon by defendants 15-18. In case of any doubt, the defendants 15-18 are at liberty to hunt clarification from plaintiff who will then apply to courtroom,” it ordered.
Defendants 1-14 have been named within the swimsuit and embody journalists and social media platforms. Defendants 15-18 are authorities authorities. The remaining defendants are john doe (unidentifiable).
As per the swimsuit, a coordinated and malicious on-line marketing campaign has been orchestrated by the Defendants, purporting to hyperlink her to Jeffrey Epstein and his felony actions.
“Commencing on or round 22.02.2026, a sequence of false, deceptive, and defamatory posts, articles, movies, and digital supplies have been revealed, disseminated, and amplified throughout social media and middleman platforms, together with, inter alia, “X” (previously Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, Fb, LinkedIn, digital information portals, blogs, and different web-based publications,” the swimsuit states.
It provides that Puri is being focused in a “coordinated and motivated method” with the clear intention of maligning and discrediting her, each in India and on a world scale.
She has stated that the impugned publications proceed to stay reside, accessible, and extensively circulated throughout social media, inflicting sustained reputational injury to her.
The swimsuit states that the defendants have “fabricated and disseminated baseless imputations”, together with that she maintained direct or oblique enterprise, monetary, private, or “community” hyperlinks with Jeffrey Epstein or his felony actions, that she or a agency the place she labored obtained “funding,” “monetary advantages,” or tainted cash from Jeffrey Epstein or his associates and that one Mr. Robert Millard allegedly acted along with her to engineer the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
“These allegations are fully false, malicious, and devoid of any factual basis. The Defendant Nos. 1 to 14 and several other unidentified John Doe(s)/Ashok Kumar(s) have strategically propagated these unfounded allegations by way of sensationalist and manipulative codecs, together with edited movies, deceptive captions, and doctored thumbnails, designed to maximise public outrage, digital virality, and consequent reputational hurt to the Plaintiff,” the swimsuit states.
The swimsuit has been filed by way of Advocates Shantanu Agarwal, Manas Arora and Syed Hamza Ghayour.
Counsel for Puri: Senior Advocates Mahesh Jethmalani, Mohit Mathur, Pramod Dubey and Sunil Dalal, together with Advocates Ravi Sharma, Shantanu Agarwal, Akhil Sacher, Madhulika Rai Sharma, Kapil Rustagi, Manas Arora, Syed Hamza Ghayour, Abhinav Tyagi, Rasveen Kaur Kapoor, Vineeth Varma Penmetsa and Anjani Kumar Rai
Title: HIMAYANI PURI v. KUNAL SHUKLA & ORS
