Delhi High Court imposes Rs 25K costs on Shazia Ilmi for hiding facts in plea against Rajdeep Sardesai

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday imposed Rs 25,000 costs on BJP leader Shazia Ilmi for "wilfully suppressing" complete facts in her plea alleging defamation and violation of her privacy during a show hosted by journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, however, said recording and publishing the part of the video, in which Ilmi was seen withdrawing herself from a live debate and moving out of the shooting frame, violated her "right to privacy".

The controversy arose after Ilmi took part in a debate Sardesai hosted on the news channel in July 2024 on the Agniveer scheme row. After some sharp exchanges between the two, Ilmi left the show midway.

Later, the veteran journalist put out a video and a post on X which Ilmi claimed were objectionable and a violation of her privacy.

“The show was over, my consent was over. Thereafter, I can’t be recorded in my personal space without my consent” Ilmi's counsel had contended in the court.

The court said Sardesai and the channel he was hosting the show on, could not have recorded or used the portion of the video in the absence of Ilmi's express consent.

Ilmi's allegations relating to the video recording of her removing the microphone, allegedly outraging her modesty or violating her privacy appeared to be "misconceived" and an "afterthought", the order held.

The court said if Ilmi did not want the act of removing her microphone to be recorded, she should have first asked the video journalist recording her to stop, confirmed it and then proceeded to remove her microphone.

The plaintiff did not do any of the above, the court said, but once she decided to withdraw from the live debate, she unmiked herself while still being seen on national television and walked away from the shooting frame.

The court passed the order on Ilmi's plea for an interim injunction against Sardesai and others.

Sardesai was in August 2024 directed by way of an interim order to take down the video from his personal X handle.

On Friday, the court confirmed the interim order.

Ilmi, on the other hand, was asked to approach the court with "clean hands" for she alleged defamation on the basis of a conversation on an X thread.

The court said she must have mandatorily disclosed the full conversation thread, particularly her own tweets or comments.

"Before parting, this court would like to take note of the fact that since the plaintiff (Ilmi) had willfully suppressed two tweets which formed part of the same conversation thread of which the impugned quote tweet was part of and therefore, the plaintiff is saddled with the cost of Rs 25,000 payable to Delhi High Court Bar Clerks’ Association, through the secretary within a period of three weeks," Justice Arora said.

While the court allowed Sardesai to retain certain comments made in his tweet, as the same was protected by defence of truth, it said he couldn't retain the other part of the text--not protected by defence of truth--being substantially correct.

"Defendants 1 and 2 (Sardesai and India Today) are not entitled to publish or circulated the impugned video as it consists of an 18 seconds video footage for which there was no consent of the plaintiff for its recording or publication," it held.

Having reviewed the video and replies of another defendant, the video journalist, the court said the quote tweet and the comments were "not justified" and "liable to be removed".

The court granted a month's time to the defendants to file their written submission in the main suit.