Bombay High Court to Salman Khan’s Neighbour: ‘Social Media Not Licence to Defame’, Asks to Delete Videos

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Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday told Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s Panvel farmhouse neighbour to consider deleting social media posts and videos against the actor, while remarking that access to social media does not give anyone the right to defame others.

A single-judge bench of Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh was hearing Salman Khan’s appeal against a Mumbai civil court order that had refused him interim relief in a defamation suit filed in 2022.

While hearing the matter, Justice Deshmukh observed: “Just because one has access to social media does not mean they can upload videos about any person, whether a common citizen or a celebrity, merely to defame them”.

She added: “Nobody can just upload a video and then go to a court… No one can just upload anything about anybody… You just cannot bring disrepute to someone be it a celebrity or a common man”.

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The dispute involves Ketan Kakkad, an NRI who owns property adjoining Salman Khan’s ‘Arpita Farm House’ at Panvel in Raigad district. Kakkad has alleged that Khan violated environmental norms during construction and blocked access to his property. He claimed complaints to authorities yielded no action, after which he posted tweets and gave interviews to YouTube channels on the issue.

Khan filed a defamation suit claiming the videos and tweets were defamatory and “communally provocative”. He sought removal of the content and restraint on further posts. After the civil court denied interim injunction in 2022, Khan moved the High Court.

Justice Deshmukh suggested Kakkad “just delete the videos and the tweets” and said his legal stand would not be diluted by doing so.

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