The Delhi High Court, in a recent order, has directed the removal of defamatory stories and videos against The News Minute’s editor-in-chief Dhanya Rajendran. Justice Vikas Mahajan passed the order on July 15, while hearing a defamation suit filed by Dhanya and Digipub News Foundation against the disinformation campaign that Dhanya and a host of other independent news organisations are “agents” of billionaire George Soros.
George Soros is a Hungarian-born American financier, philanthropist, and activist whose success as an investor made him one of the wealthiest men in the world. He is also known as a powerful and influential supporter of liberal social causes. He is also the founder of Open Society Foundations, which gives grants to groups and individuals that promote democracy, transparency and freedom of speech.
Over the past few months, news channels and websites - Karma News, Janam TV Janmabhoomi, News India Malayalam and Hindu Post - have been orchestrating a targetted misinformation campaign against Dhanya and other news organisations. The smear campaign started after the “Cutting South 2023” conclave that was held in March 2023. While the name was a play of words “Cutting Chai'' and “Cutting Edge”, which is a synonym for things which are advanced, progressive, pioneering, unconventional, and state-of-the-art, it was misconstrued as dividing the south and culminated in the campaign with the journalists being referred to as “Indian representatives” of George Soros and alleged that they were a conduit for foreign funds being diverted into India “with an intent to cause disruption in India and the Indian social fabric”.
After hearing the counsels of the petitioners, the judge directed the channels and websites to “take down/remove/restrict access/block the URLs” of the news items within a period of ten days. If they failed to do so, the petitioners are asked to inform YouTube, who would take down the videos within a period of 36 hours.
While passing the order, Justice Mahajan observed that the alleged videos and posts contain “defamatory and libellous allegations and insinuations, made in a reckless manner without regard to the truth, to injure the reputation” of the petitioners. “I am of the prima facie view that the allegations in various posts/videos are not based on any credible and reliable sources for making out a case that the said allegations are true and based on facts. Further, such allegations do not seem to be premised on a public record document such as any criminal case registered or pending against the plaintiff no.1 [Dhanya Rajendran]” he added.
The case has been posted for October 23, 2024, for the next hearing.
