Delhi HC agrees to hear Facebook's plea on Ramdev video

New Delhi : The Delhi High Court on Thursday agreed to hear social media giant Facebook's plea, challenging a single-judge order which had asked it to remove video content "on a global basis" allegedly containing defamatory allegation against Yoga guru Baba Ramdev from its platform.

A bench of justices S. Muralidhar and Talwant Singh said that it will hear arguments at length on December 7 but refused to pass any interim order to stay single judge order. Facebook's counsel and senior advocate Kapil Sibal requested the court to restrain Ramdev from initiating contempt action against it till the appeal was pending.

Ramdev's counsel assured the court that he will not initiate any contempt action against the social media platform till the division bench decides the matter. Last week, a single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court had directed the Facebook to globally remove, block or disable links to a video containing defamatory allegations against yoga guru Ramdev.

The court order had come while hearing a plea by Ramdev seeking global restraint order against Facebook, Google, its subsidiary YouTube, and Twitter from carrying content related to a book.

On September 29, 2018, the Delhi High Court restrained the publication and sale of the book 'Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev' until the publisher deletes some defamatory portion written against Ramdev.

The court had observed that the defamatory portions of the book were being communicated to the public through the video which was uploaded on Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter.