Delhi HC directs Wikipedia to take down page on ANI suit against the platform
A bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said the page was “prima facie contemptuous".
The Delhi high court on Wednesday directed Wikipedia to take down within 36 hours a page on Asian News International (ANI)’s ₹2 crore defamation suit against the free online and crowd-sourced information encyclopedia.

A bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said the page was “prima facie contemptuous” and amounted to Wikipedia’s interference in court proceedings”. Wikipedia is the defendant in the defamation suit. “The sub judice principle seems to have been violated with impunity by the appellant/defendant,” it said.
The page was created after ANI sued Wikipedia over an allegedly defamatory description of the news agency. On August 20, the high court directed Wikipedia to disclose information within two weeks about the subscribers who edited the page. ANI later filed a contempt plea alleging Wikipedia failed to abide by the August 20 order.
On September 5, a bench of Justice Navin Chawla threatened to direct the government to close Wikipedia’s business transactions in India.
Another page later appeared titled “Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation” claiming Justice Chawla threatened to shut down Wikipedia in India if necessary. It added that Justice Chawla’s order directing the online platform to disclose the information about subscribers, who edited the ANI’s Wikipedia page, amounted to “censorship” and a “threat to the flow of information.” Wikipedia later moved the division bench of the high court against the August 20 order.
On Monday, the court asked the platform if it was willing to take the ANI page down. It noted that Wikipedia calls itself a “free, online encyclopedia” and that the platform cannot put the judge in fear or threaten him. “This page will have to be taken down by your client in case he even wants to be heard. You may be a powerful entity, but we live in a country which is governed by law, and we take pride in that,” it said.
The court criticised Wikipedia’s approach to the disclosure order. “Your Section 79 protection cannot remain,” it said, referring to the provision in the Information Technology Act that provides legal immunity to platforms against content shared by their users. Section 79 says that an intermediary shall not be liable for any third-party information, data, or communication link.
The court said it would record that Wikipedia’s protection under Section 79 is now blown up. “You have created an infrastructure whereby anonymity is going to be protected, where people can rely on some material which they will not have to defend,” it said.
On Wednesday, ANI’s counsel, Siddhant Kumar, submitted that after Monday’s hearing, the court’s prima facie view was opened up for discussion on the same page.
Senior advocate Amit Sibal, who appeared for Wikipedia, submitted the platform would take down the page and discussion in the event the court directed it to take down both.
The court considered the contention and directed the platform to take down the page within 36 hours, observing that the discussion on the page regarding Monday’s hearing “compounded the contempt”.
“Consequently, in the interim, this court directs the page as well as the discussion regarding the observation made by this court be taken down/deleted within 36 hours,” the court said.
