Deposit Savukku Media’s revenue in court, Madras High Court directs YouTube LLC

Madras High Court directs YouTube to deposit revenue earned by Savukku Media for defamatory allegations against Lyca Productions.

Observing that YouTubers do not possess a licence to tarnish the reputation of others by levelling wild and baseless allegations, the Madras High Court on Tuesday directed YouTube LLC to deposit in the court, the entire revenue earned by Savukku Media Private Limited through videos in which ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar had accused Lyca Productions Private Limited of using money from the smuggling of drugs.

Justice N. Sathish Kumar ordered that the revenue should be deposited to the credit of a civil suit filed by Lyca Productions seeking damages of ₹1 crore and a permanent injunction restraining Savukku Media from making any kind of derogatory and defamatory imputations either directly or by innuendos. The cinema production house had also taken out a few applications seeking interim relief until the disposal of the suit.

Passing orders on a couple of those applications, the judge also restrained Savukku Media from making further statements against the production house. The ex-parte orders were passed at the instance of senior counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by B. Arvind Srevatsa, who contended that Lyca’s prime business was running a mobile virtual network based in London and that it was a highly respected multi-national business house.

The senior counsel said, Savukku Media had hosted a video on its YouTube channel on March 4, 2024 containing several imputations against the cinema production house. The YouTube video had been followed up with several defamatory tweets on X. The video as well as the tweets had been viewed by thousands of people to whom a completely wrong picture about the production house had been presented, he added.

Contending that the intention of the YouTuber Shankar was to project Lyca Productions in a bad light, he said this had been achieved by making blatantly false allegations. “Calling names, unfounded on facts and reality, deserves to be chastised. No person should be allowed to escape the consequences of uttering falsehood deliberately aimed at lowering the stature of a person or a company in the eyes of the public,” Mr. Raghavachari said.

Finding force in his submissions, the judge ordered notice, returnable by April 12, to the YouTuber on the suit as well as the applications filed by the production house seeking interim relief. In the meantime, considering the balance of convenience and in order to protect the right to privacy of the production house, the judge restrained the YouTuber from making further defamatory statements.