The Delhi High Court on Friday (18 November) passed an ad-interim order restraining Audrey Truschke, Ananya Chakravarti and Rohit Chopra from publishing defeamatory content alleging plagiarism against historian Vikram Sampath in relation to his works on Veer Savarkar.
On February 14, historian and author Vikram Sampath moved the Delhi High Court against controversial author Audrey Truschke and others, including social media site Twitter, over defamatory comments and false charges made against him on the platform. He had sought ₹2 crore in damages from Truschkey and two others
The single-judge bench of Justice Amit Bansal gave the order in the plea filed by Sampath against historian Truschke and others who had written a letter to the Royal Historical Society raising allegations of plagiarism against him with respect to a journal publication and his two-volume biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
“In my view a prima facie case is made. the continued publication of the letter has been causing considerable damage to the plaintiff’s reputation and career. Balance of convenience is also in his favor and irreparable damage will be cause if the injunction is not granted. Consequently, till the next date of hearing, the defendants are restrained from publishing the letter or any other defamatory material on twitter as well as any other online or offline platforms,” the order said, reported Bar and Bench.
Justice Bansal also noted Twitter’s argument that if Sampath provides URLs of tweets containing a letter written by the defendants to the President of Royal Historical Society (RHS) Emma Griffin accusing Sampath of plagiarism, the same will be taken down by the social media platform.
“Senior Counsel for Twitter said that if urls are provides,the same will be taken down by them,” the HC judge recorded in his order.
The plea also has tech journalist Abhishek Baxi, Professor Ashok Swain, Twitter and Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as defendants.
The court further noted that due credits were given for the works used in Vikram Sampath’s work and added that the continued sharing of the defamatory content was causing considerable damage to Vikram Sampath’s career.
The Court proceeded to issue summons to the defendants on the plea by Sampath and posted the case for hearing next on 1 April 2022.
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