The Delhi High Court has issued contempt of court notices to users of social media platform X for uploading videos of an altercation between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shazia Ilmi and a cameraperson from India Today, according to reports by Bar and Bench. The action was taken on Wednesday following a fresh application filed by Ilmi in her ongoing defamation suit against senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, who presided over the hearing, also directed social media platforms X and Meta, the parent company of Instagram to take down the disputed videos uploaded on their platforms.
The altercation in question took place on July 26, during a debate on the India Today news channel in which Ilmi was participating. She left the debate midway, alleging that her microphone had been deliberately cut off by Rajdeep Sardesai in an attempt to silence her. In a subsequent social media post, Ilmi accused the channel's cameraperson of continuing to record her after she had exited the programme, despite her physical and emotional distress.
On July 27, Sardesai responded by posting a video on social media that showed Ilmi removing her microphone, reacting angrily to the cameraperson, and asking the video journalist to leave her house. Sardesai asserted that the cameraperson was simply performing his duties and that there was no justification for what he described as "bad behaviour."
Ilmi went on to file a defamation suit against Sardesai in August. Shortly afterward, the Delhi High Court directed both Sardesai and India Today to remove the video from all public platforms, observing that it had been filmed after Ilmi had withdrawn from the debate and that it violated her right to privacy.
In a separate development on April 4, the court imposed a fine of ₹25,000 on Ilmi for concealing key facts in her defamation suit. The court noted that she had failed to disclose two of her own social media posts that were relevant to her exchange with Sardesai after the video had been made public. Nevertheless, the court maintained that the video infringed on her privacy and should not remain accessible online.
In her latest application, Ilmi sought further legal directions for the removal of eight specific social media posts, one on Instagram and seven on X, that contained 18 seconds of the contentious video footage. Her petition argued that these posts had been shared despite previous court orders prohibiting the video’s circulation.
During the hearing, Meta’s legal counsel informed the court that the Instagram post in question had been uploaded on July 24, predating the August court order that barred dissemination of the video. However, the court emphasized that the remaining posts on X had been uploaded after its April 4 directive, in direct violation of its ruling.
Justice Arora instructed both X and Meta to ensure that the posts featuring the disputed video are taken down. He also ordered X to initiate appropriate action against the users responsible for sharing the video, in accordance with its service agreement and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The platform has been given a week to comply.
Reiterating its earlier position, the court stated that the continued online circulation of the 18-second video clip violates Shazia Ilmi’s fundamental right to privacy.