Delhi High Court allows Wikipedia to serve summons on users in ANI's defamation suit

The Delhi High Court on Monday allowed Wikipedia to serve summons on the users accused of adding allegedly defamatory statements on the wiki page about Asian News International (ANI) [Wikimedia Foundation Inc v. ANI Media Private Limited & Ors]..A Bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed the order while disposing of an appeal moved by Wikipedia against a single-judge's order directing it to disclose the identity of the users.In order to protect the privacy of its users, Wikipedia had last month agreed to share the user information with the Court and also volunteered to serve summons of ANI's defamation suit on them. Both ANI and Wikipedia had then been asked to prepare a consent order. After the same was produced today, the Division Bench disposed of the appeal."I think we have made a lot of progress here. People have got identified in the process, they will be served within a week. What else can be there," the Court said while refusing to entertain other arguments being raised by the ANI.The development will effectively protect user privacy while also subjecting them to legal proceedings.This could be one of the rare instances when an intermediary like Wikipedia would be serving summons on the defendants - the platform users in this case - instead of the plaintiff or the Court. .During the hearing earlier, Advocate Sidhant Kumar, representing ANI, referred to a user’s open letter to Wikipedia about the case. ANI claimed that one of the signatory of the letter is an editor of Wikipedia who is going to be summoned in the suit.It was submitted that the letter contains comments about judges handling the matter and states that the Delhi High Court is not neutral.At this stage, Justice Manmohan said,“Everyday you go to the social media, you will find all this”. Kumar said his duty was only to inform the Court. Justice Gedele said,“We can’t be defined by somebody who has his own views. We can’t either get moved by this or cowed by it. It is okay. People will have different perspectives of us”..ANI has filed a defamation suit before the High Court alleging that Wikipedia was allowing defamatory edits to its page on the online encyclopedia.The same is currently pending before a single-judge. With Wikipedia agreeing to serve the users in question, the suit will proceed now for hearing on interim relief.Before the single-judge, ANI has prayed for take down of the defamatory edits on its Wikipedia page. .In July, the Court in the suit had issued a summons to Wikipedia and ordered it to disclose information about three people who made the edits on ANI's Wikipedia page.After ANI complained that Wikipedia had not complied with this directive, single-judge Justice Navin Chawla had taken strong objection to Wikipedia's conduct and issued a notice for contempt of court.The single-judge had also ordered an authorised representative of Wikipedia to be personally present in Court on October 25, when the contempt case was listed next.These single-judge directives were challenged by Wikipedia before the Division Bench.In an earlier hearing, the Division Bench also took a dim view of the encyclopedia's reluctance to disclose information on users who allegedly made defamatory edits on ANI's Wikipedia page..Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal represented Wikipedia along with advocates Nikhil Narendran and Tine Abraham.