Dhruv Rathee Real fruit juice case: Calcutta High Court slams Dabur for insistence on orders to remove videos

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday expressed its displeasure at Dabur India for its insistence on passing orders to pull down all the URLs of the video made by content creator Dhruv Rathee on the company's product, Real fruit juice [Dabur India v. Dhruv Rathee]..The Court had on March 24 ordered YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to block public access to the said video, in which Rathee depicted how Real fruit juice affects the health of consumers, especially children. Rathee's counsel Nakul Gandhi, appearing from Delhi virtually, told the Bench that his client had initially made the video 'private' and had gone a step ahead from what the Court had ordered."My client had made the video private. This would mean that if any user downloads the URL and uploads the said video on their channel, my client will get a notification. And then he can directly delete that video. But if he pulls down the original video, he will not get any notification of the video being uploaded from other sources. But now, we have complied with the courts ord and have deleted the video," Gandhi pointed out. .Dabur's counsel Debnath Ghosh objected to the same and urged Justice Ravi Krishan Kapur to issue orders to pull down several such videos, uploaded from other channels well. He stated that the videos were originally made by Rathee. However, the Bench refused to consider the request. "You (Dabur) show that there has been some malafide on his (Rathee) part. If you can show that he has uploaded all those videos then we will pass orders (against Rathee). Else I cannot allow a multinational company to pursue a case like this against an individual," the judge observed. On Ghosh's insistence for orders, the judge shot back,"Mr Ghosh, please don't try this with me. You cannot start a Mahabharat like this. Let him file an affidavit." The Court, therefore, granted four weeks time to Rathee to file his affidavit and adjourned the hearing till May 8. .In the order passed on March 15, the judge noted that the video in question makes a clear and brazen reference to Real and uses slides from an earlier advertisement which had been aired by Dabur."The product of the petitioner Real has been repeatedly targeted both overtly and covertly in the impugned video. Any consumer would understand that the product shown in the impugned video is that of the petitioner’s product Real. Prima facie, at the ad interim stage even though the underlying intent of the impugned video may not be objectionable, in making repeated direct and brazen references to the product Real of the petitioner, the Lakshaman Rekha or the Rubicon has been crossed," the Court had observed in its order dated March 15..Advocates Debnath Ghosh, S Prasad, B Mukherjee and N Banerjee appeared for the Petitioner.Advocate Nakul Gandhi represented Dhruv Rathee. Senior Advocate Utpal Bose and advocate Phiroze Edulji represented YouTube. Advocate Sakabda Ray represented Meta India. .[Read order]