After Delhi HC's Rebuke, Abhijit Iyer Mitra to Take Down X Posts Against Newslaundry Journalists

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Wednesday (May 21) refused to hear Abhijit Iyer Mitra – who is facing a defamation case filed by women employees of Newslaundry – till the time he takes down his alleged defamatory posts from X.

"Can you defend these articles? These kind of languages, whatever may be background, can these kind of language against women permissible in the society?...You must take down this. Then only we will hear you," Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav orally remarked, reported LiveLaw.

Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who was appearing for Iyer, agreed to take down the posts immediately.

"While going through the nature of the language which is used by the defendant, the court was of prima facie view that the same is not permissible in any civilized society...," said the court.

Women employees from Newslaundry have filed a defamation suit in the Delhi high court against Abhijit Iyer Mitra alleging that the latter posted sexually abusive social media posts against them on X.

The suit, filed by nine women journalists of Newslaundry, seeks a public apology and Rs. 2 crore from Mitra as damages and compensation for the alleged defamation.

The women journalists who have filed the suit are Manisha Pande, Ishita Pradeep, Suhasini Biswas, Sumedha Mittal, Tista Roy Chowdhury, Tasneem Fatima, Priya Jain, Jayashree Arunachalam and Priyali Dhingra. Newslaundry is also one of the plaintiffs in the suit.

As an interim relief, the suit also seeks the take down or removal of the impugned posts from Mitra’s X handle.

The defamation suit says that the allegedly defamatory posts by Mitra on X are libellous, unfounded and misconceived, tainted with collateral objectives, having been made knowingly and deliberately, calculated to harm the dignity and reputation of the women employees.

The suit alleges Mitra of “falsely and maliciously” labelling the women employees of Newslaundry and referring to them as 'prostitute' and their workplace as a 'brothel. The suit accuses Mitra of using allegedly derogatory terms and slurs through his series of posts on X.

The defamation suit says that all the subscribers of Newslaundry are also referred to as "prostitutes" in Hindi, without appreciating that they range from doctors, to lawyers, to judges, to teachers, to scientists, to architects, to engineers, amongst others.

“No woman/ person deserves to be dehumanised. No profession deserves to be weaponised as an insult. These remarks strip women—whether journalists or sex workers—of agency, identity, and respect,” says the plea.

“They are sexist slurs aimed at humiliating women professionals in Plaintiff No. 10's organisation, and they directly attack their dignity and right to work without fear or sexual harassment, apart from a attack on the Plaintiff No. 10 organisation,” the plaint states.

The court will take up the matter again next week.

Following the remarks of the court, Mitra wrote on X that he has full faith in the judiciary and will take down the posts.

"I have full faith in the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. They have asked me to take down my poetic tweets about NewsLaundry. I am complying with said order in deference to the Court. The Hon’ble court has not gotten into the defamation aspect yet, where I will expose these NL charlatans for what they are. It is curious of course that the lawyers for NL only focused on my poetic tweets & entirely avoided the tweets where I have repeatedly questioned NL’s dubious funding and journalistic integrity," Mitra wrote on X.

Newslaundry's managing editor Manisha Pande, who is the main petitioner in the defamation case against Mitra, shared an article on X that provides the funding and ownership details of the website.

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