P.C.:

1. Plaintiff is a reputed jewellery brand operating in India and is engaged in manufacturing and trading of jewellery.

2. It is Plaintiff’s case that it had plans to establish a new show-room at Birmingham in United Kingdom (UK). In order to promote the said

show-room and to attract prospective customers from adjoining localities, Plaintiff had engaged social media influencers as a part of its marketing strategy. Accordingly, Defendant No.8 (JAB Studios) was engaged for the purpose of securing services inter alia of social influencers. It appears that one of the principal influencers provided by Defendant No.8 for promoting Plaintiff’s show-room in Birmingham, UK was Ms. Alishba Khalid, a Pakistani Instagram Influencer, who is a resident of UK. It appears that the said influencer had publicly condemned India’s surgical strike during Operation Sindoor against Pakistan. However, according to Plaintiff, the arrangement for engagement of Ms. Alishba Khalid, social influencer had taken much prior to the Pahalgaon attack. According to Plaintiff, engagement of Ms. Alishba Khalid was done in absence of knowledge on the part of the Plaintiff about her connections with the neighbouring country.

3. The problem that the Plaintiff now faces is that several posts/materials/stories are being posted on social media platforms against the Plaintiff by random persons seeking to connect the Plaintiff with the neighbouring country. On account of Plaintiff hiring services of social influencer criticizing India’s Operation Sindoor, it is being portrayed through such posts that Plaintiff is a sympathizer of Pakistan. Plaintiff contends that this is being done strategically at the instance of competitors so as to ensure that Plaintiff’s business during festive times suffer. At Exhibit-J to the plaint, Plaintiff has provided list of 442 URLs containing defamatory posts against the Plaintiff. Plaintiff has accordingly sought injunction against the Defendants from publishing any further defamatory contents against it and for removal of contents which are already published on the social media platforms.

4. I have heard Mr. Engineer, the learned Senior Advocate appearing for the Plaintiff and I have considered the submissions canvassed by him. I have also heard Mr. Lakhani, the learned counsel appearing for Defendant No.1 and Ms. Rana, the learned counsel appearing for Defendant No.3. None appears on behalf of the rest of the Defendants though being served privately.

5. It is Plaintiff’s case that mere utilization of services of the UK based social influencer by it at some point of time cannot be a reason for spreading defamatory contents by the competitors. Mr. Engineer has submitted that Plaintiff has discontinued the services of the said influencer. He further submits that Plaintiff cannot be connected to the activities of the influencer, especially considering that the posts by her are subsequent to her engagement by Plaintiff. Considering the submissions canvassed by Mr. Engineer, in my view, a case is made out for grant of ad-interim injunction in favour of the Plaintiff for pulling down the posts, list of which alongwith URL is already provided at Exhibit-J to the plaint. Similarly, the Defendant Nos.1 to 7 on whose platforms defamatory material is being published against the Plaintiff, deserves to be restrained from permitting publication of any further defamatory material against the Plaintiff qua the influencer arrangement made by it with Ms. Alishba Khalid.

6. Accordingly, till the next date of hearing, there shall be an ad-interim protection in favour of the Plaintiff in terms of the following order:

i) Defendant Nos.1 to 7 shall pull down and delete all the posts/materials/stories details of which are reflected in the chart at Exhibit-J to the plaint;

ii) Defendant Nos.1 to 7 shall not permit publishing of any further defamatory material against the Plaintiff qua the arrangement made by the Plaintiff for engagement of Ms. Alishba Khalid as a soci