Political commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra agreed to take down his offensive tweet against nine female employees of online news portal Newslaundry after the Delhi High Court took offence to the same. The High Court took a strong view of the language used by Mitra and refused to hear the commentator’s justification for the same till the tweets were taken down.
“The court was of prima facie view that the same is not permissible in any civilized society,” the high court said and agreed to advocate Jai Dehadrai’s submission—he is representing Mitra—that the tweets would be taken down within five hours.
In a series of tweets, Mitra had referred to the Newslaundry reporters as “cheap prostitutes” and used other sexually coloured remarks.
“How can you defend this? Is this kind of language against women permissible in a civilized society? You must take down, then only we will hear you,” Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav orally remarked after perusing the tweets.
The court also slammed Dehadrai’s attempts to defend the tweets when he said the comment was not attributable to anyone in particular. Dehadrai also submitted that Mitra had also questioned Newslaundry’s “questionable” source of funding. “They are attributable to plaintiffs (Newslaundry reporters). If it is not attributable to any person, what is the point of putting it out?” Justice Kaurav said.
“Whatever the questionable income is, that is not under challenge. What we can look into is something that is under challenge (the questionable tweets)…,” Justice Kaurav said.
“Going by any principle of law, such language in a public platform (is unacceptable)...Does he understand the definition of brothel? Can someone taking funds from questionable sources be called a brothel? You may have multiple questions, but the choice of words are impermissible,” the judge added.
When Dehadrai argued that allowing this civil claim would amount to shutting Mitra down, the court warned that it was in its power to take suo motu cognizance of the language used and direct an FIR.
Responding to the high court order, Mitra tweeted: “I have full faith in the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. They have asked me to take down my poetic tweets about NewsLaundry. I am complying with said order in deference to the Court. The Hon’ble court has not gotten into the defamation aspect yet, where I will expose these NL charlatans for what they are. It is curious of course that the lawyers for NL only focused on my poetic tweets & entirely avoided the tweets where I have repeatedly questioned NL’s dubious funding and journalistic integrity.”
Mitra’s tweets a scathing attack and defamatory: Newslaundry reporters
Newslaundry’s Executive Editor Manisha Pande and eight others filed a defamation suit against political commentator Abhijit Mitra Iyer for his tweets where he referred to them as “prostitutes”.
Ishita Pradeep, Suhasini Biswas, Sumedha Mittal, Tista Roy Chowdhury, Tasneem Fatima, Priya Jain, Jayashree Arunachalam, Priyali Dhingra and news portal Newslaundry have filed the suit.
In their defamation suit, the Newslaundry female employees sought a written apology and Rs. 2 crores in damages.
In their suit, Pande and her colleagues claim that Mitra launched a series of “scathing and belligerent attacks” against them and he cannot be “permitted to disseminate falsities, only with the oblique motive to gain cheap publicity and eyeballs”.
The defamation suit pointed out that while fair criticism of their journalistic work was welcome, nobody deserved to be personally humiliated. The suit highlighted that even sex workers have dignity and using the 'prostitute' as an insult was not only an attack on women journalists but it also demeaned and reinforced the deeply regressive and violent attitudes toward sex workers, many of whom already face systemic marginalisation and stigma.
“No woman/ person deserves to be dehumanised. No profession deserves to be weaponised as an insult. These remarks strip women—whether journalists or sex workers—of agency, identity, and respect,” the plea read, adding that Mitra's post is not covered under free speech, fair criticism of one's journalistic work or even satire.
“They are sexist slurs aimed at humiliating women professionals and they directly attack their dignity and right to work without fear or sexual harassment,” the plaint read.
