HC restrains investor from posting defamatory content about coding tutor platform

The Delhi high court on Tuesday restrained Anirudhh Malpani, a doctor and an investor in early-stage startups, from publishing, writing, or sharing any content online

The Delhi high court on Tuesday restrained Anirudhh Malpani, a doctor and an investor in early-stage startups, from publishing, writing, or sharing any content online that is derogatory, defamatory and disparaging to WhiteHat Jr, a platform teaching coding to young children, after the latter had filed a defamation suit against the doctor. The court also directed Malpani to remove the defamatory tweets within 48 hours.

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Justice Mukta Gupta granted ad interim injunction to the WhiteHat Jr stating that prima facie, an irreparable loss would be caused to the plaintiff and the balance of convenience lies in his favour.

“The defendant is restrained from making/ publishing/circulating/ sharing any content, which is defamatory, deprecating in nature to the plaintiff (WhiteHat Jr), its management or employees,” the court said in an oral order.

The court was hearing a suit filed against him by WhiteHat Jr seeking a permanent injunction restraining him from defaming it, infringing, diluting or tarnishing its trademark and seeking damages of around ₹14 crore from him. WhiteHat Jr, in its lawsuit, has contended that the doctor’s tweets were defamatory and tarnishes the image of the company as well as the tutors employed by it to teach coding to children.

On Tuesday, while issuing summons to Malpani for January 14, the court raised the matter of the credibility of information being circulated on the social media while stating that the content on social media is “unsubstantiated”.

“Just because you think it is correct, you retweet without checking the credibility. You are tweeting without any back check and tweeting thinking that one is correct and the other one is wrong,” the judge remarked during the hearing. The judge said Malpani can’t call someone “a pig”, “cheat”, or “scamster” and that “there has to be a healthy discussion”.

WhiteHatJr, through senior counsel Neeraj Kishen Kaul, along with advocates Swetashree Majumdar and Rajshekhar Rao, told the court that Malpani has been contending that its teachers are unqualified. They said that the teachers are interviewed at various levels and screened before being hired. They contended that Malpani had made disparaging remarks on the basis of random information given by an individual on social media.

Highlighting the background of Malpani, the counsels pointed out that he is an angel investor who is investing in businesses in the edutech ecosystem, such as one which professes to teach children website and app development and animation, among other things.

Malpani’s counsel Yadunath Bhargavan, said that the teachers at WhiteHatJr are interviewed only for a minute. He said that there is a barrage of tweets that a child cannot be made into a coding giant in Silicon Valley as promised and claimed.

He said that this is an “attempt by a billion dollar behemoth to muzzle free speech”.

However, the court said, “Even if the teachers have been interviewed even for one minute, who are you (Malpani) to judge them? Several times we get to know whether a suit is maintainable or not in the first one minute of the hearing listening to the facts.” It said that there has to be a difference between healthy and abusive discussion.

It also said that education does not guarantee good manners, as even the most illiterate person can be well mannered after Malpani’s counsel started reading out the educational qualifications of his client.