A Delhi court on Monday directed NDTV journalist Gargi Rawat to pay Rs 10,000 as damages to commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra in a defamation suit filed by him in 2019, Live Law reported.

The commentator had sought Rs 20 lakh in damages from Rawat and advocate Dushyant Arora. He had filed the defamation suit after Arora alleged in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Iyer-Mitra was a rape accused. Rawat was accused of liking the post.

However, District Judge Satyabrata Panda of the Patiala House Courts fined Rawat Rs 10,000, saying that Iyer-Mitra himself was “no stranger to controversy” and had often made “objectionable, derogatory and reprehensible comments” on social media, Live Law reported.

The judge added that if the amount is not paid within two weeks, it will carry 6% annual interest from the date of the judgement until it is cleared, Bar and Bench reported.

Arora had already settled the matter by publicly apologising to Iyer-Mitra on X and admitting that his claim “had no basis in fact”.

The case stems from a December 2019 exchange on social media.

Journalist Rana Ayyub had called an article written by Mitra for The Print titled “In Rana Ayyub, the White West has found its next Arundhati Roy” a “hit job”. Mitra wrote the article in response to a New Yorker article about the Narendra Modi-led government’s policies and actions against Muslims in the country.

Replying to Ayyub’s post, Arora alleged that Mitra was accused of rape and that he routinely engaged in hate speech.

In his suit, Iyer-Mitra argued that the allegation caused reputational damage and was also homophobic since he “identifies as a ‘gay’ man”.

During an earlier hearing, Rawat described Iyer-Mitra as an attention-seeker who engaged in hate speech to gain attention, Live Law reported.

She also argued that though she had “liked” the social media post, there was no proof that her action brought more people to the post.

The court rejected the defence. In Monday’s order, it noted that Rawat’s “like” had allowed the post in question to be available on her profile, holding that it was “clearly” a case of “republication”, Live Law reported.

Rawat told Scroll that she was considering further legal options in the matter.

“The court has itself ruled that the ‘law on defamation through liking of a social media post is still developing and evolving’,” she said. “It has also observed on the record that ‘mitigating factors’ apply to its conclusions.”

In 2024, X changed its privacy settings so that users can no longer see which posts others have liked.

HC order on ‘Newslaundry’ defamation case

In a separate case, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to grant immediate interim relief to Newslaundry journalists, who claimed that Iyer-Mitra posted fresh defamatory remarks about them on July 3 and August 4, Bar and Bench reported.

The remarks were made despite an earlier court order directing him to remove objectionable posts about the women employees of the news outlet.

On May 21, Iyer-Mitra agreed in court to delete certain objectionable posts within five hours, and this promise was recorded in an interim order.

The court had also said that the language used by Iyer-Mitra was unacceptable in a civilised society and warned that it might involve police action before he withdrew the earlier posts.

On Wednesday, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said that the court had to balance the rights of both sides, noting that Iyer-Mitra had already removed previous posts following court directions.

He also said that the new posts referred to “poetry” and “basti” and were not directly about Newslaundry.

The next hearing is scheduled for October 16.

The High Court was hearing a defamation suit filed by employees of Newslaundry seeking a public apology and Rs 2 crore in damages from Iyer-Mitra, a columnist at pro-Narendra Modi outlet OpIndia.

In their suit, they stated that Iyer-Mitra, through a series of social media posts, had “falsely and maliciously” targeted the news outlet’s women employees using derogatory language and slurs.

The complainants argued that Iyer-Mitra’s posts were made “knowingly and deliberately” with the intent to harm the dignity and reputation of the employees.

Iyer-Mitra’s comments are “not an aspect of free speech or journalistic criticism”, said the employees.

In their interim application, the Newslaundry journalists asked the court to stop him from making further defamatory statements and take down the new posts. They also sought that the court direct X to remove similar content.

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