The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) functionaries regarding a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking contempt action against them. The PIL alleges that they uploaded and shared clips of a court hearing on Kejriwal's plea for the recusal of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma in the liquor policy case.
Court Issues Notices and Directs Removal of Videos
A bench comprising Justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet P S Arora issued notices to former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, Congress leader Digvijay Singh, and others on the petition filed by advocate Vaibhav Singh. The court also directed social media platforms to take down videos of the April 13 hearing.
The judges emphasized that unauthorized recording, uploading, publishing, and sharing of court proceedings are prohibited under high court rules. They asked the platforms whether they could ensure the removal of such content after it was uploaded. The court remarked, “We are concerned with the larger interest of the institution. Otherwise, if we don’t control this, it would go on.”
Response from Social Media Platforms
During the hearing, counsel for social media intermediaries Meta and Google submitted that the links flagged by the petitioner had already been taken down. However, the petitioner pointed out that certain videos of the proceedings could still be viewed on X (formerly Twitter). The High Court directed that X must take down those links immediately upon receipt of notice. The court also granted the petitioner liberty to approach the counsel for social media platforms if any other video clips were found, which would then be removed.
Affidavits and Further Proceedings
The court asked AAP leaders Sanjeev Jha, Mukesh Ahlawat, Jarnail Singh, and journalist Ravish Kumar to file their affidavits. The matter was listed for hearing on July 6. The court also issued notice to the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, seeking its appearance in the matter.
The senior counsel for Meta contended that as an intermediary, Meta does not function as a “super censor” nor does it have the technology to proactively monitor specific content but acts when an issue is escalated according to law. “The moment we get to know, we take it down. The moment we got the letter from the High Court administration, we took it down,” the counsel said, adding that no case for initiating contempt action against the platform was established.
The court also asked the platforms to disclose if they could identify the first person who uploaded the videos. The Meta counsel said that since the uploader accounts have been identified, they can provide the High Court with subscriber information.
PIL Seeks SIT Probe and Contempt Proceedings
The PIL alleges that Kejriwal and his party members hatched a “conspiracy” and “dirty strategy” to record court proceedings. It urges the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter and seeks contempt proceedings against all respondents who uploaded, reposted, or forwarded the recording of the court proceedings.
