The Delhi High Court on Monday held that retweeting or reposting defamatory content amounts to defamation, Live Law reported.
A single-judge bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma passed the judgement while refusing to stay a criminal defamation case filed against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for sharing a 2018 video made by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee.
The case was filed in 2018 by Vikas Pandey, who accused Kejriwal of sharing the video that contained allegedly false and defamatory content against Pandey. Pandey claims to be a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is the founder of a social media page “I Support Narendra Modi”.
Pandey argued that the Aam Aadmi Party chief is followed by crores of people and by retweeting the video, he had shared it with a larger audience.
In 2019, Kejriwal was issued summons by the additional chief metropolitan magistrate in the case. The politician had challenged the summons in the sessions court, which refused to quash the order.
Kejriwal had then moved the High Court challenging the orders of the lower courts. He also sought that the criminal defamation case against him be quashed.
The court held that interactions on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and sharing posts with others by retweeting them attracts the liability for defamation. It said that retweeting must attract penal and civil action.
“When a public figure, particularly one with a political standing, tweets or retweets a defamatory post, the stakes and repercussions escalate given the broader implications on society,” the High Court said. “The audience, therefore, becomes the citizenry at large, whose opinions and decisions may be influenced by the information they consume, including defamatory statements published on social media.”
The court held that a person retweeting or reposting defamatory content should add a disclaimer in their post whether they are agreeing, disagreeing or have verified the content, reported Bar and Bench.
If they do not add a disclaimer, the person would be republishing the original defamatory content, which has the potential of lowering the moral or intellectual character or credit of a person who is the subject of that content.
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