The Delhi High Court on Tuesday gave X (formerly known as Twitter) and Google 24 hours to remove social media posts alleging that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s daughter, Anjali Birla, an Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) officer, cleared the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam in her first attempt due to her father’s influence.
Justice Navin Chawla stated that the posts were made without proper verification and were not genuine.
“The social media posts complained of do not appear to be made after due verification. The purpose of posting the impugned social media posts in 2024 and the language therein does not appear to be bona fide. Defendants number 1 and 2 are also directed to remove/block the social media content which has been complained of in the present suit till further orders,” the court said.
This order came after senior advocate Rajiv Nayyar, representing Birla, argued that the posts were being circulated recklessly, three years after his client joined the service, to damage the reputations of both Anjali Birla and her father.
Birla’s defamation suit, filed by advocates Aditya Bharat Manurbarwala and Sanyam Khetarpal, stated that she had appeared for the UPSC CSE 2019 exam and joined the IRPS on April 26. The suit claimed that a false and malicious campaign against her and her family began in 2021 due to her father’s political status and resurfaced after he became the 18th Lok Sabha Speaker, aiming to create unrest during the investigation of the alleged NEET exam paper leak.
“The frivolous tweets, comments, posts, and statements on social media platforms are also aimed at somehow connecting the Plaintiff’s UPSC result to the alleged NEET Examination, 2024 paper leak, which are not even remotely related to each other in any sense whatsoever. The tweets/posts were uploaded in such a manner that they are being viewed by lakhs of people and have been tweeted/retweeted thousands of times,” the suit said.
Birla also asserted in her suit that her private pictures were circulated from her own social media accounts and other public forums, falsely portraying her as a model, violating her right to privacy.
“The images of the plaintiff presumably from her own social media account and other public forums is to paint a false and distasteful picture of the plaintiff being a model. The images have been taken out of context in many ways to succeed in their nefarious agendas. The content and narrative of all the videos that are the subject matter of this suit is false and there is not even an iota of truth that resides therein. The posts also portray the father of the plaintiff in a very poor light,” the suit said.
