A Single Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta of Delhi High Court has in the matter of Jagran Prakashan Limited v.Telegram Fz LLC & Ors. has granted Dainik Jagran interim relief in a case against Telegram regarding the circulation of e-papers of Dainik Jagran on its platform.
Background of the Case:
The petitioner newspaper had filed a suit for temporary injunction under Order XXXIX Rule 1 and 2 Civil Procedure Code, 1908 against Telegram FZ LLC (in short Telegram) having its office at Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Dainik Jagran is a Hindi named newspaper which has a wide circulation in both physical as well as digital media throughout the country and the digital e-paper of the plaintiff is available and published on www.jagran.com.
The petitioner had submitted that the readers of the newspaper have the option to either subscribe to the physical/print newspaper or they can log on website to read the daily newspaper in the digital format on the web page itself.
Considering the present COVID-19 situation the petitioner was not charging any subscription fee from its readers in India but was charging a fee of one dollar in other countries however, in view of the enhanced postings the petitioner was contemplating imposing a fee on the digital newspaper in India as well.
As per the plaint, the website of the plaintiff has a security feature whereby any reader can read the newspaper in the digital form on the website but cannot download the same in the PDF format.
On the other hand, Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging and voice over IP service. Telegram client apps are available for android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows, Mac-OS, and Linux. These users of Telegram can send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files of any type.
The main contention of the petitioner was that Telegram grants access and permission to the users of the application to create various channels while not disclosing the identity of such users. The said users of Telegram had created several channels and, on these channels, the e-papers of the petitioner were being uploaded in PDF format daily.
Hence the petitioner claimed that Telegram with the help of these channels was not only permitting availability of current editions of the e-paper but also users subscribing to the channels of Telegram could download all the previous editions of the e-paper published in the past, which was otherwise available to a user only if he subscribes the e-paper subscription while visiting the website of the petitioner.
The Counsel for the petitioner had submitted that under the provisions of Section 79 (Exemption from liability of intermediary in certain cases) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, Telegram cannot escape from its liability on the ground that it is an intermediary for the reason, Telegram is required to conduct due diligence and in terms of Rule-3 sub-rule 4 of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 on being informed about the misuse, Telegram is required to pull down the said channels within 36 hours. They alleged that even after sending repeated notices to Telegram, the channels were still working.
On being satisfied that the petitioner had made out a prima facie case in its favor and incase no ad-interim injunction was granted the petitioner would suffer irreparable loss, the Court directed Telegram to disclose the identity of all those who were running the channels and takedown/block the telegram channels with Ids: t.me/dainikjagran, t.me/dainikjagranhindi, t.me/dainikjagran_jnm, t.me/dainikjagranpdf, t.me/dainik_jagran, t.me/dainikjagran, t.me/DJagran, t.me/Dainik_Jagran_pdf, t.me/Fainik_Jagran_News, t.me/dainikja or any other similar channels infringing the rights of the petitioner within 48 hours of the receipt of the order.
The matter is posted on June 23, 2020, for the next hearing.
