In Brief
Swami Ramdev and Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. sued Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter over defamatory videos summarizing a banned book about Ramdev. The videos contained material already deemed defamatory in earlier litigation. The court held that Section 79 of the IT Act requires intermediaries to completely remove unlawful content from the entire computer network, not merely geo-block it to India. Where content is uploaded from Indian IP addresses, Indian courts can order global removal. Geo-blocking alone is insufficient as the defamatory material remains accessible via VPN and international websites. For content uploaded outside India, geo-blocking to the Indian domain suffices. The court balanced the right to reputation (Article 21) against freedom of speech (Article 19), concluding that court orders must be fully effective.
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