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The Madras High Court passed a judgement on 12^th of April, 2023 in which it made an observation stating that in a defamation case, for deciding the interlocutory application, social media presence of the accused would be considered relevant. This was seen in the case of V. Senthil Balaji v Nirmal Kumar (O.A.No.731 of 2022 and A.Nos.5161 to 5164 and 5913 of 2022 in C.S. No.244 of 2022) and the case was presided over by The Honourable Mr. Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.

FACTS OF THE CASE:

The defendant, Nirmal Kumar, former State President of the BJP’s IT wing had Previously made many unsubstantiated allegations of corruption against the petitioner who is a DMK Minister. The petitioner thus filed a defamation case against the defendant.

JUDGEMENT:

The court after listening to the contentions of both parties, restrained the defendant from making such unsubstantiated allegations. In this case, the learned single judge had made many observations regarding the same. He expressed that the speed and the frequency in which messages can be disseminated to the users of social media platforms should be of material consideration. The court made note of the number of followers the defendant had, the number of views that he gets and so on.

The court further established that this injunction would not stand in the way of the defendant making more of such allegations as long as it is backed by facts and evidence. After examining all the 17 posts in question by the defendant, 6 posts on Twitter and 1 YouTube video were considered defamatory and were asked to be removed.

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JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY SWETA SHOUMYA