A Delhi court recently ordered NDTV journalist Gargi Rawat to pay ₹10,000 as damages to Abhijit Iyer-Mitra for liking a defamatory tweet alleging that he had been accused of rape [Abhijit Iyer Mitra v Dushyant Arora and Anr]. .In an order passed on September 8, District Judge Satyabrata Panda of the Patiala House Courts said that he was quantifying the damages at ₹10,000 against the claim of ₹20 lakh after considering the mitigating factors, including the fact that Iyer-Mitra is “no stranger to controversy". He has, on various occasions, indulged in making objectionable, derogatory and reprehensible comments against various persons or sections of society through his social media posts, the Court noted. “In the result, decree is passed in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendant no.2 for damages of ₹10,000/- only. In case this amount of damages is not paid within a period of two weeks from the date of the present judgment, then the amount of damages shall also carry interest @ 6% p.a. from the date of the judgment/decree till the actual realisation. It is further directed that, in case the impugned tweet is still showing on the profile or timeline of the defendant no.2 on the Twitter/X platform, then the same be permanently deleted and/or removed,” the Court ordered. .The Court passed the order in a defamation suit filed by Iyer Mitra against Rawat and a Mumbai-based lawyer Dushyant Arora. The dispute goes back to December 2019 when Iyer-Mitra wrote an article for The Print titled as “In Rana Ayyub, the White West has found its next Arundhati Roy”. Rana Ayyub posted a link to the said article on Twitter stating that the article was a “hitjob”. Arora replied to Ayyub’s tweet, “The man has been accused of rape, he routinely engages in hate speech”. This tweet was liked by Rawat. Iyer-Mitra argued that Rawat’s liking of the defamatory tweet means that the same could be read by anybody who perused her Twitter profile. He said that the allegations made in the “defamatory tweet were false and frivolous and were of such nature that they would lower his reputation in the eyes of the right-thinking people”. Arora and Iyer-Mitra settled the matter and Arora published an apology on his Twitter profile as well. .While deciding the case with respect to Rawat, the Court held that liking the tweet made it available on Rawat’s profile and thus the same constitutes republication. “In view of the aforesaid discussion, there is no manner of doubt that the act of the defendant no.2 in “liking” the original defamatory tweet in question amounted to republication and, as a result, the defendant no.2 is liable for the tort of defamation,” the Court held. It rejected Rawat’s argument that Iyer-Mitra had singled her out for liking the tweet even though the same was retweeted, liked, replied and/or commented by numerous other persons. “Hence, in the overall facts and circumstances of the case, although the online republication and circulation by the defendant no.2 was of a grave false allegation, however, taking into account the mitigating factors as discussed above, I consider it reasonable to grant the plaintiff damages on the lower side which are quantified as ₹10,000 only against the plaintiff’s claim of ₹20 lacs,” the Court concluded. .Advocate Raghav Awasthi appeared for Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. .[Read Order]
