Intermediaries are not liable for third-party content under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act; the burden of proof for defamation lies with the plaintiff, which was not met in this case.

JUDGMENT

This suit has been filed for the relief of recovery of money directing the defendants to pay a sum of Rs.5 crores towards damages and compensation to the plaintiff and also for permanent injunction, restraining the defendants from making, uploading, writing, publishing, broadcasting, distributing or disseminating in any form whatsoever any defamatory material, statements, continuing in uploading, publishing including the purported/ video/ audio, any material or statement, referred to in the plaint, relating to or arising from, relatable to the plaintiff which affecting and damaging the name and reputation of plaintiff's newspaper 'Dinamalar' in any manner; for a mandatory injunction directing the first defendant to remove / delete the false, defamatory and politically motivated video / audio or any other material or statements aforesaid and; for a mandatory injunction directing the second defendant to immediately remove / delete the video uploaded by the 1^st defendant in his YouTube channel.; for a mandatory injunction directing the second defendant to permanently ban the first defendant and his channel from uploading or using the service of the second defendant; to direct the defendants to pay the cost of this suit.

2. The brief facts of the plaintiff are as follows:-

(i) The plaintiff's news paper, 'Dinamalar' is a Tamil News Daily that has been in existence for more than 70 years. On 06.06.2021, the 1^st defendant had uploaded a video on his Youtube Channel 'Tamil Kelvi' under the title “jkpH; thHf; vdw; hy; jpd ky///////fF; Vd; vhpfpwJ” , (If Tamil is praised why Dina Mala..... is getting burning) whereupon the 1^st defendant has appeared in the video throughout and has blatantly transgressed moral and ethical journalistic norms by openly making crass and baseless statements and innuendos against plaintiff's newspaper with the sole intention to not only malign and damage the name and reputation of plaintiff's newspaper to affect the way of its business but also to incite communal and political violence among the public at large. Being a former political editor in Tamil popular news channels News 18 and News 7 and being the current forerunner of a show for 'Maalai Murasu', the first defendant has made politically coloured statements and overt innuendos in the said video, that the plaintiff's newspaper only publishes news that is biased towards a particular political party, which are all completely false and baseless and the said contends amounts to defaming the name and reputation of the plaintiff's newspaper with malafide intention to damage the business of the plaintiff's newspaper in order to unjustly enrich the business of the 1^st defendant's show for 'Malai Murasu'

(ii) The aforesaid video accessed at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpmuNRE0138 in 1^st defendant's Youtube channel – 'Tamil Kelvi' is highly defamatory and damaging to the name and reputation of plaintiff's newspaper and still the first defendant has not removed the video from his You Tube Channel. The plaintiff issued notice dated 08.06.2021 to the defendants through Registered Post as well as by Email claiming damages and the said notice was returned with an endorsement that 'no such person' and the Email has been received by the 1^st defendant and the 2^nd defendant also received the e-mail dated 08.06.2021 and had replied to the plaintiff that no action would be taken without order from this Court. The 1^st defendant neither replied to the legal notice nor deleted the video from his Youtube channel. While the facts are being so, the 1^st defendant on 10.07.2021, ag