Delhi High Court orders media to take down extramarital affair allegations against YSR MP Vijaya Sai Reddy

The Delhi High Court recently ordered a host of news and YouTube channels to take down videos and articles leveling allegations of extra-marital affairs against YSR Congress Party Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Venumbaka Vijaya Sai Reddy [Sh Venumbaka Vijaya Sai Reddy v Aamoda Publications Private Limited & Ors]..In an interim order passed on August 8, Justice Vikas Mahajan ordered six news channels and a bunch of social media handles to take down the allegations as well.The Court ruled that the allegations were mere rumours and could potentially affect the dignity of a woman as well as Reddy.“The plaintiff is stated to be a sitting member of Rajya Sabha and the heedless allegations of the nature noted above not only bring his name into disrepute, but have the potential of adversely affecting his political career and reputation carefully built over the years,” the Court said.The Court said that if the news platforms fail to take down the content, Reddy can approach social media intermediaries Google, Twitter and Facebook for removal of the videos/articles.“Under these circumstances, it is deemed appropriate to direct the defendant nos. 1 to 6 to take down/remove/restrict access/block the URLs of the below mentioned YouTube videos, posts on Google, videos on Facebook as well as posts on ‘X’, which contain defamatory statements against the plaintiff within a period of 10 days,” the Bench ordered..The injunction order was passed against channels like ABN Andhra Jyothi, Mahaa News, TV5 News, BIG TV, Aadhan and Wild Wolf TV.Reddy moved the High Court stating that these channels held panel discussions accusing him of having extra-marital affair with a woman and alleging that he even had a child with her.It was further alleged that the woman (a government servant) was granted exclusive access to restricted areas during the COVID-19 Lockdown, was involved in questionable land transactions, and that large sums of money were exchanged between Reddy, the woman and her husband.Reddy was also accused of being involved in various scandals, narcotics incident and liquor scam..Advocates Amit Agrawal, Sahil Raveen, Rahul Kukreja, Sana Jain and Arjun Chhibbar appeared for V Vijaya Sai Reddy.Advocates Samarth Krishna Luthra and Chirag Kakkar represented ABN Andhra.Advocates Mamta R Jha, Rohan Ahuja, Shruttima Ehersa and Rahul Choudhary represented Google. .[Read Order]