Observing that YouTubers do not possess a licence to tarnish the reputation of others by levelling wild and baseless allegations, the Madras High Court on Tuesday directed YouTube LLC to deposit in court, the entire revenue earned by Savukku Media Private Limited through a video in which ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar had accused Lyca Productions Private Limited of using money from smuggling of drugs.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar ordered that the revenue should be deposited forthwith to the credit of a civil suit filed by the cinema production house demanding damages of ₹1 crore from Savukku Media. “Privacy is a part of a person’s fundamental right which has been compromised in the present case by levelling accusations against the plaintiff company without proper verification of facts,” the judge said during the hearing.
He went on to state: “Considering the nature of the statements which have been circulated without any verification and the derogatory remarks which give undue advantage to YouTubers to collect revenue, this court is prima facie satisfied that unless there is some mechanism to control these type of allegations in the social media, it will have a serious impact, and in fact, intrude into the privacy of others.”
The judge also passed an interim injunction restraining Savukku Media from making/publishing any derogatory/defamatory imputations against Lyca Productions either directly or by innuendos in any manner whatsoever other than by following due process of law. He further ordered notices, returnable by April 12, to Savukku Media on the civil suit as well as the applications taken out for interim relief.
Representing the plaintiff, Senior Counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by B. Arvind Srevatsa, stated that Lyca’s prime business was running a mobile virtual network based in London and that it was a highly respected multi-national business house. However, the YouTuber had tarnished the image of the company by imputing as if it was using money generated by some third party through smuggling of drugs.
The senior counsel said, Savukku Media had hosted a video on its YouTube channel on March 4, 2024 containing several imputations against the cinema production house. The YouTube video had been followed up with several defamatory tweets on X. The video as well as the tweets had been viewed by thousands of people to whom a completely wrong picture about the production house had been presented, he added.
Contending that the intention of the YouTuber was to project Lyca Productions in a bad light, he said this had been achieved by making blatantly false allegations. “Calling names, unfounded on facts and reality, deserves to be chastised. No person should be allowed to escape the consequences of uttering falsehood deliberately aimed at lowering the stature of a person or a company in the eyes of the public,” Mr. Raghavachari said.
