Epstein links: HC seeks stand of Hardeep Puri's daughter on activist's plea

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the stand of Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri's daughter on an activist's plea seeking to lift the order asking him to take down social media content linking her to convicted American sex offender late Jeffrey Epstein.

Justice Mini Pushkarna issued a notice to Himayani Puri on the application filed by Kunal Shukla, seeking the vacation of the interim order passed on March 17, and asked her to file her reply.

The judge clarified that the court will take up Puri's main stay application and Shukla's application together on May 7, as the arguments for both issues would be the same.

On April 6, a division bench of the court refused to entertain the activist's appeal against the take-down order and asked him to agitate his grievances before a single-judge bench.

According to Shukla, the single judge passed a blanket gag order, restraining him from publishing, circulating or disseminating the content in question on social media platforms, without giving him due notice or time to file a reply.

Shukla said he published "interrogative content" on social media based on publicly-available documents, including international reports and officially-released material, and raised questions of public importance.

On March 17, the single judge directed the removal of social media content linking Puri's daughter to Epstein and restrained several users from publishing, circulating or disseminating such content on social-media platforms in any manner.

The court passed the order on a lawsuit filed by the Union minister's daughter, while observing that she has a prima-facie case in her favour and she will suffer an irreparable injury if interim relief is not granted.

The senior counsel representing Himayani Puri in the court contented that the allegations against her are "completely false, reckless and malicious".

It was stated that there was an "orchestrated attack" on the plaintiff, arising from "personal and political malice".

In her lawsuit seeking Rs 10 crore as damages and an order to restrain several entities from disseminating defamatory content, Himayani Puri has claimed a coordinated and malicious online campaign to link her to Epstein and his crimes.

She has also sought an unconditional apology and retraction from the defendant entities.

"Commencing on or around 22.02.2026, a series of false, misleading and defamatory posts, articles, videos and digital material were published, disseminated and amplified across social media and intermediary platforms including inter alia X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, digital news portals and other web-based publications," the plea says.

Himayani Puri has also said she is an accomplished finance and investment professional who is being targeted solely because she is the daughter of the Union minister for petroleum and natural gas.

According to her lawsuit, the defendants disseminated "baseless imputations" that she maintained direct or indirect business, financial or personal network links with Epstein.

The allegations are entirely false, malicious and devoid of factual foundation, the plea has said.

The Epstein files refer to thousands of pages of documents related to two criminal investigations into sex trafficking by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, including travel logs, recordings and emails, which have been a topic of conversation since Epstein died in custody in 2019.