HC issues notice to three Congress leaders over journalist Rajat Sharma’s plea

The Delhi High Court on July 5 issued notices to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Ragini Nayak on a plea by veteran journalist Rajat Sharma claiming they have deliberately not complied with the order directing them to remove alleged offensive social media posts against him.

The Delhi High Court on July 5 issued notices to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Ragini Nayak on a plea by veteran journalist Rajat Sharma claiming they have deliberately not complied with the order directing them to remove alleged offensive social media posts against him.

The High Court also issued notice to social media platform X on the application filed by Mr. Sharma. The court asked the defendants to submit their reply within two weeks and listed the matter for August 22.

In an interim order on June 14, the court had directed the three Congress leaders to remove social media posts alleging that the journalist used “abusive language” on his show the day the Lok Sabha election results were announced.

It had said an irreparable loss and injury would be caused to Mr. Sharma’s reputation if the videos and posts on X were allowed to remain in the public domain.

On Friday, Mr. Sharma’s counsel submitted that the three Congress leaders have not complied with the High Court’s order and the posts continued to exist.

Counsel for X submitted that the social media platform complied with the order late evening of July 3, the journalist’s lawyer contended that the compliance is partial as the posts have been disabled in India but can be seen elsewhere.