HC suggests CJP leaders voluntarily take down posts about BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia

The Delhi High Court on Thursday verbally remarked that it was not correct for Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka to post about Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gaurav Bhatia on social media without verification, Live Law reported. The bench suggested that they remove the posts voluntarily.

The court was hearing Bhatia’s defamation suit against Das, Ranka and Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke.

The suit pertained to an image shared by Das and Ranka on social media platform X on September 5, following the arrest of Swatantra Bhardwaj, a Hindutva influencer accused of assaulting the father of a student activist during the youth protests at Jantar Mantar.

Bhatia alleged that the post was an artificial intelligence-generated image that falsely attributed statements to him, claiming that he had described Bhardwaj as “dimaagi naxali” and “jaatiwaadi”, or casteist, Live Law reported.

The court observed that “there are different ways of protesting”, the legal news outlet reported.

“You are all youngsters,” it told the Cockroach Janta Party leaders. “You may have anxieties. But attacking like this without verifying is not correct.”

It added that if Das and Ranka were willing to delete the posts on their own, the court would not pass a takedown order.

The counsel appearing for Das said that his post had already been deleted.

The court noted that there...

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