Delhi HC Orders 24-Hour Takedown of Content Falsely Linking CJI and Judges to London Badminton Event

Justice Tejas Karia directed the Union to issue IT Act notifications within 24 hours to remove content falsely depicting judges and ministers at a London badminton championship.

The High Court of Delhi, sitting in vacation, passed urgent directions on 19 June 2026 ordering the Union of India to issue notifications under the Information Technology Act, 2000 directing all social media intermediaries, search engines, web-hosting platforms, and digital media platforms to take down content falsely depicting the Chief Justice of India, sitting judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and Union Ministers as participants in the 2nd International Bar & Bench Badminton Championship held in London on 7 June 2026. Justice Tejas Karia, sitting singly as Vacation Judge, found the impugned content to be ex facie false, malicious, and derogatory to the judiciary and the executive, and directed compliance within 24 hours of receipt of the notification. The petition was filed by the Badminton Association of India, the apex national governing body for the sport.

The Event and the Misinformation That Followed

The 2nd International Bar & Bench Badminton Championship was held in London on 7 June 2026. It was organised by Ms. Abantika Deka, a former international badminton player and founder of Deka Events, and was intended to promote goodwill within the legal fraternity through sport. The Badminton Association of India, affiliated with the Badminton World Federation, was associated with the event in its capacity as the national governing body.

After the event concluded, a wave of content appeared across YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and digital news portals. The content alleged that the Chief Justice of India, more than 75 sitting judges, and Union Ministers Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal and Shri Kiren Rijiju had travelled to London at public expense to participate in the championship. Photographs circulated widely were presented as evidence of this alleged participation.

The petitioner identified specific pieces of content as the impugned material. These included two live-streamed YouTube videos on the channel “@thepublicindia” run by one Neelu Vyas, articles published by The Print, National Herald (Associate Journals Limited), and Tribune India, as well as posts on X by several accounts. The URLs of all these items were listed in Annexure-A to the order.

The petitioner's senior counsel, Mr. Apurv Kurup, submitted that the content was not mere criticism or commentary but a concerted, politically motivated campaign to scandalise and lower the dignity of the Chief Justice of India and judges of the constitutional courts in the estimation of the public.

The All India Lawyers Union Statement and the PIB Fact Check

A formal statement dated 11 June 2026, signed by the President and General Secretary of the All India Lawyers Union (AILU), described the event as a vulgar display of inappropriate and objectionable collaboration and characterised the alleged participation of the Chief Justice and over 100 sitting judges as a violent negation of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct, 2002. The petitioner submitted that this statement was made without any factual, legal, or evidentiary foundation.

On 10 June 2026, the Press Information Bureau Fact Check Unit had already issued a public clarification stating that the viral photographs were not from London at all. The PIB identified the photographs as having been taken at the All India Judges' Badminton Championship held on 29 November 2025 at Thyagaraj Stadium, New Delhi. The Ministry of Law & Justice, Department of Legal Affairs, issued a separate official statement on 11 June 2026 to the same effect, confirming that reports of Minister Meghwal travelling to London with 75 judges were false and misleading.

What the Government Placed Before the Court

The Solicitor General of India, Mr. Tushar Mehta, appeared for the Union along with Additional Solicitor General Mr. Chetan Sharma. Their submissions provided the factual matrix that the court relied upon in passing the interim directions.

The government confirmed that the photographs showing Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Vikram Nath, Minister Meghwal, and Minister Rijiju playing badminton were taken at the 29 November 2025 national-level Bar and Bench tournament at Thyagaraj Stadium, New Delhi, where a token inaugural match was played. The Chief Justice of India had indeed been on an official visit to London in June 2026, but for entirely different purposes: he met the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Right Honourable Lord Reed of Allermuir, and addressed functions on arbitration law and artificial intelligence. He did not participate in any badminton tournament or sporting activity in London.

The government further stated that neither Minister Meghwal nor Minister Rijiju visited London during the relevant period. As per government information, only two judges from the Allahabad High Court visited London, and they did so in their personal capacity.

How the Court Reasoned

Justice Karia accepted the submissions and found that the impugned content was not protected commentary or fair reportage. The court drew a clear distinction: the content was founded on demonstrably incorrect factual assertions, including the circulation of photographs from a different event held in a different country in a different year, and the attribution of participation to persons who were not present at the London event.

The court found that the material indicated a systematic misinformation campaign intended to malign the reputation of the Chief Justice of India and sitting judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts. It also found that Union Ministers had been unnecessarily targeted through the dissemination of false information. The false narrative — that judges and ministers undertook foreign travel at public expense to attend a sporting event — was found to be entirely fabricated, confirmed both by the PIB fact check and the Solicitor General's submissions.

The court held that the continued circulation of such content had a direct bearing on the reputation of constitutional institutions and, if not restrained forthwith, was likely to erode public confidence in the justice delivery system. It found that the questioning of judicial independence based on such false content was wholly unsupported by any factual or evidentiary foundation. On this basis, it was satisfied that a strong case was made out for urgent directions.

The court did not treat the matter as one of mere criticism of the judiciary. It emphasised that the impugned content was not criticism, comment, or fair reportage, but was built on fabricated facts and misrepresented photographs. The potential for serious and irreversible injury to public confidence in constitutional courts was the basis for the urgency of the directions.

Directions Issued

The court directed the Union of India to forthwith issue an appropriate notification under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules framed thereunder, or any other applicable law, directing all concerned intermediaries — including social media intermediaries, significant social media intermediaries, search engines, web-hosting platforms, digital media platforms, internet service providers, and other online service providers — to take down, remove, block, disable, de-index, and restrict access to the impugned content within 24 hours of receipt of the notification.

The scope of the takedown direction extended to any identical, mirrored, modified, edited, clipped, reproduced, re-uploaded, derivative, or substantially similar versions of the impugned content. The specific URLs listed in Annexure-A to the order were to be included in the notification.

All recipients of the notification were directed to preserve and furnish, in a password-protected document or sealed cover, the Basic Subscriber Information and other relevant information in respect of the uploaders or account operators disseminating the impugned content — including name, address, contact details, email addresses, bank details, IP logs, and allied records — within one week of receipt of the notification. The Union was directed to initiate appropriate legal action against such persons in accordance with law.

The Union was also directed to issue a separate notification to all uploaders, news portals, bloggers, and account holders directing them to take down the impugned content and restraining them from uploading, publishing, hosting, communicating, circulating, distributing, posting, tweeting, sharing, reproducing, transmitting, or otherwise disseminating the impugned content or any substantially similar version on any platform, website, social media account, channel, handle, application, or medium.

Members of the public were also restrained from uploading, publishing, circulating, sharing, or otherwise disseminating the impugned content on any social media platform, search engine, web-hosting platform, digital media platform, or other online medium.

Order

Notice was issued to the respondents, who accepted service through counsel. The Union was directed to file a status report indicating compliance with the directions within three weeks. The matter was listed for compliance on 17 July 2026. The order was passed on 19 June 2026 by Justice Tejas Karia, sitting as Vacation Judge.