Delhi HC imposes Rs 1 lakh costs on online education firm that filed defamation suit over tweets
‘Conversational’ social media platforms such as X are not perceived by users as ‘reliable verified’ sources of information, the High Court said.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed a defamation suit filed by online legal education company LawSikho against four persons who had put out posts on social media platform X questioning the quality of its law courses.
The court imposed costs of Rs 1 lakh on the firm, noting that it did not disclose the entire conversation in the thread.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that in defamation cases involving posts on X, the allegedly defamatory tweets cannot be read in isolation and must be analysed in the context of the full thread.
“The court has to consider that nature of the medium is casual and fast paced, conversational in character and an elaborate analysis of a 140-character tweet [or even more than that] may be disproportional,” Arora said. “Importantly, the absorption by the reader and the reaction to the post is impressionistic and fleeting.”
The court noted that a representative of LawSikho, Ramanuj Mukherjee, had started a discussion on the matter on X by posting a tweet. Two lawyers responded to the tweet, commenting on the quality of LawSikho courses.
The online education company then filed a defamation suit, claiming that the tweets could cause them to lose business, and that the posts posed a threat to the value of its shares listed on the National Stock Exchange.
On the other hand, the defendants contended that their tweets constituted fair comment, which is entitled to protection from defamation proceedings.
The High Court noted that one of the tweets was by an anonymous account, and was merely in the nature of provocation intended as an insult. It said that Mukherjee, having initiated the conversation, should have maintained “the proverbial thick skin” with respect to comments from an anonymous account.
The judge said that unlike newspapers or magazines, conversational social media platforms such as X are “not perceived by the users of the said platform as a reliable verified source of information”.
The court also noted that LawSikho had not first reported the matter to the grievance officer under Information Technology Rules before approaching the court.
