ORDER :

Prayer: Petition filed under Section 11 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, to punish the respondent for his willful defiance disobedience and violation of the order dated 05.08.2019 passed in O.A. No. 730 of 2019 in C.S. No. 463 of 2019.

1. Complaining disobedience/willful violation of the order passed in Application No. 730 of 2019 dated 05.08.2019, the applicant seeks to punish the respondent.

2. The suit in CS No. 463 of 2019 has been filed by the applicant seeking compensation of Rs.1,10,00,000/- for the damage and loss caused to the reputation of the plaintiff due to the willful acts of defamation committed by the defendant.

3. The petitioner claims to be a leading medical service provider specialising in Diabetes Care and was incorporated as a Company on 22.10.1990. It is ISO 9001-2000 certified Institution. It is manned by very renowned diabetologist and is headed by Dr.V.Mohan, who had received several awards including Padma shri Award by the Government of India. It is also claimed that Dr.V.Mohan was awarded Harold Rifkin Distinguished International Service in the cause of Diabetes Award from the American Diabetes Association and he is also a recipient of Dr.B.C.Roy Award from the Medical Council of India.

4. The petitioner would aver that the defendant approached its branch in Kancheepuram on 02.10.2018 seeking treatment for Diabetes. Dr.Karthik Raghavan, who is incharge of the Centre examined him and he suggested a certain treatment. The defendant refused to accept the suggestion and opted to go for Glycemic control. After some time, the defendant started making calls to the Customer Care Executive and whenever he was called to remind him of an appointment, he used rude language and claimed that the treatment was not warranted.

5. The petitioner would further claim that the respondent has been publishing derogatory posts on the social media with the calculated intention of tarnishing the image of the plaintiff. On the above contentions, the petitioner sought for an order of injunction restraining the defendant from making such malicious publications which would lower the image of the plaintiff in the public domain.

6. On 05.08.2019 I had granted an interim order restraining the defendant from publishing, circulating and writing in any manner on any social media platform or any other public domain any false and derogatory remarks about the applicant/plaintiff and its management. According to the petitioner, the order of injunction was communicated to the defendant in compliance with Order XXXIX Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure on the same day and it was received by him on 06.08.2019.

7. It is the case of the petitioner that despite receipt of such notice, the defendant had continuously disobeyed the order and has been publishing derogatory messages and articles in various social media platforms. Certain messages put up by the defendant in the social media platform were also placed before me. Considering the nature of the messages that were posted in the social media platforms, I had ordered statutory notice to the respondent

8. The respondent had filed a counter affidavit denying the allegations made in the affidavit filed in support of the Contempt Petition. Since the respondent had contended that he had not published any of the derogatory materials and the alleged whatsapp posts were made by the respondent prior to the date of my order, I had directed evidence to be recorded by the learned Master. Accordingly the evidence was recorded by the learned Master and one R.P.Appadurai was examined as PW-1, the respondent contemnor examined himself as RW-1. While Exhibits P1 to P14 were marked on the side of the petitioner and Exhibits R1 to R25 were marked on the side of the respondent.

9. Mr.R.P.Appadurai, the Authorised Signatory of the petitioner Company has produced series of Whatsapp messages, Facebook Postings and Youtube comments, wherein it is claimed that the contemnor has made various statements against the