New Delhi: The Calcutta high court on Monday (October 26) passed an order directing YouTube, X and Instagram to remove access to a video titled “How Modi and Adani Stole India: The Friendship Files”. The interim defamation order applied to clips of the video as well as any of its identical reproductions.Justice Aryak Dutt said the video contained serious factual imputations against the Adani Group, including allegations of complicity in narcotics smuggling linked to terror funding and procuring police violence and false prosecution against a farmer, reported Live Law.“The impugned video is not a news report or an account of proceedings. It is a dramatised narrative, whose title expressly imputes theft, and whose narration and visuals are represented as factual,” the court said, adding that it found prima facie evidence for providing interim protection.The injunction is related to a suit filed by Adani Enterprises Limited against Sabeer Bhatia, who operates the YouTube account “Bcubed (Breaking Boundaries with Sabeer Bhatia)” and an X account “@sabeer.” It will remain in force till January 1, 2027, until further orders.Court refers to ‘exceptional’ nature of pre-trial injunctionsAs per the Live Law report, Justice Dutt said that that “pre-trial injunctions in defamation proceedings involving matters of public interest must be granted with great caution.”Referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment in Bloomberg Television Production Services India Private Limited v. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, the high court said judges must consider the public’s right to know and the chilling effect of injunctions, apart from the tests of prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable injury.Nevertheless, the court decided that the case called for an injunction considering the grave nature of the allegations in the video and its widespread circulation across social media platforms, even after the original post had been disabled in India. It said that the continued circulation of the video, which was reportedly reposted by Bhatia on October 22, could cause reputational harm that might not be addressed through monetary compensation alone.Video continues to circulate online: Adani groupSenior advocate Anirban Ray, representing the Adani Enterprises, submitted that the 36-minute video was first uploaded on October 9, in collaboration with another YouTube channel called “Shadow Citizens”. The video had allegedly garnered over 46,134 views on YouTube and over 40,000 views on X by the end of the first day.Even though the video was banned in India, following a government complaint under Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the company alleged that copies of the video were being reproduced and circulated.Ray invoked the right to reputation as an aspect of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the constitution, while clarifying that the company was not attempting to curb general criticism of governmental policy and commercial activities. He also invoked Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, to argue that social media companies were required to act on unlawful content, especially after a court order.Platforms asked to block links and preserve recordsYouTube, X and Instagram have been asked to disable specific URLs and to prevent the circulation of the video through reposts, shares and similar forms of engagement.They have been directed to preserve subscriber and registration details, IP logs associated with uploads, and access logs relating to the identified accounts and URLs. They must also disclose the basic subscriber information for accounts whose operators could not be identified.