Justice Navin Chawla recuses from hearing Wikipedia’s appeal challenging order in ANI case

The court had held that the contents of the Wikipedia page of ANI “are ex-facie defamatory” and tarnishes its “professional reputation”. The court had opined that Wikipedia “has some fiduciary responsibilities and obligations to prevent acts of defamation.”

While the matter was listed for hearing before a division bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Renu Bhatnagar, Justice Chawla recused himself. He directed that subject to the orders of the Chief Justice, the appeal be listed before another bench. The court directed that the appeal be listed tomorrow.

Justice Chawla, while sitting in a single-judge bench earlier, had dealt with ANI’s defamation suit against Wikipedia, issuing summons and directing the platform to disclose the subscriber details of individuals who made edits to the Wikipedia page of ANI. Subsequently, another Wikipedia page was made, wherein the court proceedings of ANI versus Wikipedia were detailed. This page, titled ‘Asian News International vs Wikimedia Foundation’, was later ordered to be taken down by a division bench of the Delhi High Court, headed by then Chief Justice Manmohan.

The court-ordered takedown of a Wikipedia page in India was a first, and the division bench had held that the page was “contemptuous” and “amounts to interference in the court proceedings”. This order is now under challenge before the Supreme Court.

Last month, the apex court had expressed concern on the “validity and legality” of the high court’s takedown directions, and a Justice Abhay Oka-headed two-judge division bench had orally remarked, “To bring the best out of the lawyers, sometimes we say so many things in open court. Now, if the court says something orally and, on social media, somewhere there is a comment offered, why should the court be touchy about such comments… Somebody discusses something which happens in the court, will that amount to interference?”