Delhi High Court on Friday ordered YouTuber Gaurav Taneja (Flying Beast) to delete his tweets in which he had identified, tagged, or hash-tagged Mint writer Shephali Bhatt. Taneja was also ordered by single-judge Justice Amit Bansal to stop referring to her by name in any upcoming tweets and to turn off the comment and retweet functions in any upcoming posts about his current lawsuit against Hindustan Times Media Limited, which owns the financial daily Mint. Taneja will be free to repost his In connection with a favorable ruling he obtained against Bhatt last week, the earlier tweets without mentioning, tagging, or using the hashtags #Bhatt or #Taneja, according to the court. However, the Court denied Taneja’s plea to prevent discussion of the issue on the legal websites Bar and Bench and Live Law. As the Court issued the ruling, Taneja’s attorney, Raghav Awasthi, asked the court to order the legal blogs Bar and Bench and Live Law to refrain from publishing any information about the proceedings. “It’s being tweeted by all the legal websites. Two of the journalists are also logged into the proceedings, as I can see. Why only me, when all the legitimate websites are reporting and allowing comments? This is an infringement on my right to free speech. Permit me to post without mentioning or labelling her. A similar injunction should be made against lawful websites as well, Awasthi argued, if I am not allowed. However, the relief was rejected by the court. “They are not parties here, and I cannot impose a media gag order… Tell me how you plan to prevent abusive posts. Will you be held accountable if there are any offensive posts? You agree that I won’t issue any orders against you and that there won’t be any abusive posts, the judge stated. Additionally, Bhatt’s attorney stated that she was not requesting a media gag order. The court was handling a request by Bhatt in Taneja’s already ongoing lawsuit against HT Media (Mint) to have the defamatory article the newspaper published against him removed. Earlier, the Court had ordered Mint to remove the item against Taneja. Taneja has received a lot of hate and threats since the court gave her relief, according to Bhatt, who also claimed that he tweeted the same thing, named her tweets, and included her in his. The journalist’s lawyer further claimed that there are tweets in which her client has been mentioned and tagged, which has led to some of Taneja’s followers posting derogatory posts or tweets about her.
As the Court heard the case, Awasthi stated that Taneja will delete any tweets mentioning and tagging the journalist, as well as any more posts in the future. Shouldn’t brands stop sponsoring unsavory influencers? is the title of the Mint article at issue in the lawsuit. On May 8, Mint released an article alleging that Taneja and Rathee have abused children. The report took issue with a video Taneja posted on his social media accounts in which he was seen piercing the eldest daughter’s ears. The Mint report also featured a video made by Taneja and stated that “When their older daughter urges him not to “vlog” Ritu piercing their daughter’s ears, he responds, “Why not?” The next segment of the 10-minute video shows the daughter writhing and wailing in agony as the camera pans in on her. “The Court issued a ruling in Taneja’s favour, finding that piercing a girl kid’s ears cannot be considered to be child abuse. Therefore, it has instructed Mint to remove the piece. Along with directing that the piece be removed, Justice Amit Bansal had also issued a restraining order against Mint, its journalist Shephali Bhatt, and its editor-in-chief Shruthijith KK to prevent them from uploading, disseminating, or publishing the story on any online or offline platform. The Court had also ordered journalist Abhishek Baxi to delete his tweet about the piece and to stop posting, disseminating, or otherwise making public any other similarly defamatory material about Taneja and his wife on any online or offline platform. For Bhatt, attorneys Swathi Sukumar and Naveen Nagarjuna appeared. Advocates Raghav Awasthi and Mukesh Sharma spoke for Taneja.