Delhi High Court orders takedown of YouTuber Shyam Meera Singh's video against Isha Foundation, Sadhguru

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered Google and social media platforms X and Meta to take down journalist and YouTuber Shyam Meera Singh's recent video related to Isha Foundation and its founder Jaggi Sadhguru titled 'Sadhguru EXPOSED: What’s happening in Jaggi Vasudev’s Ashram?'.The interim order was passed by Justice Subramonium Prasad on a suit moved by Isha Foundation. The Court also ordered Singh not to publish or share the video any further on the issue. "Any member of the public is also restrained from uploading the very same video on any social media platforms till the next date of hearing," it further ordered. .The Court gave a prima facie finding that Singh had made the video on entirely unverified material without conducting the due diligence of ascertaining the authenticity of the information he received. The Court also observed that title of the video is a clickbait, intended to attract the attention of the viewers. Therefore, the Court proceeded to pass the order of interim injunction, observing that continuous circulation of the video is likely to cause harm to Isha Foundation. "Continuous circulation of the video is likely to cause harm to the Plaintiff/Trust’s reputation and as stated that more than 09 lakhs views and more than 13500 comments have already been reported. If the video is not taken down immediately, the Plaintiff/Trust will suffer loss of reputation which cannot be compensated monetarily," the Court said. .Singh had recently uploaded a video reporting about certain practices at Isha Foundation. In the suit, Isha Foundation argued that the content is malicious and palpably false in nature. "Defendant Shyam Meera Singh on February 19 wrote an email to plaintiff stating that he is a YouTube journalist and he intends to make a video regarding Sadhguru allegedly asking minor girls to take off their upper clothes. He asked certain questions about the allegations," the Court was told today by Senior Advocate Manik Dogra representing Isha Foundation.It was argued that the video was then strategically and deliberately released a mere two days prior to Mahashivratri last month. The same was done to create a public furore around the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah as the Chief Guest in the Mahashivratri event of Isha Foundation at Coimbatore, as per the suit..Alleging that a "non-issue" was sensationalised by Singh, the counsel representing Isha Foundation, said,"It [video] is open to the world to see. The video has over 9 lakh views and over 13 thousand comments. There are defamatory tweets in this regard. Reputation built over decades cannot be dismantled like this."The Court will hear Isha Foundation's interim application next on May 09..Senior Advocate Manik Dogra along with a team of lawyers from Athena Legal comprising of Advocates Simranjeet Singh, Gautam Talukdar, Rishabh Pant and Yajat Gulia represented Isha Foundation. Advocates Asavari Jain and Aditya Gupta appeared for Google.[Read Order]