NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday restrained Vikash Kotnala, a YouTube channel partner of entrepreneur Vivek Bindra, from posting any defamatory content against YouTuber and popular motivational speaker and social media influencer Sandeep Maheshwari.
Noting a prima facie link between Kotnala and Bindra, Justice Prateek Jalan observed that Kotnala's videos violated a civil court order from December 22, 2023, which restrained both Maheshwari and Bindra from making defamatory statements against each other.
Highlighting the "social media war", Justice Jalan said, "I don’t mean any disrespect, but this is some sort of war that is starting on these YouTube channels. It is not that I am seeing this for the first time. There seems to be a very low level of discourse during this fighting between some rivals."
Further, the high court issued an injunction restraining Kotnala till the next date of hearing.
"I am of the view that the publication of material by Defendant No 3 (Kotnala) who claims to be channel partner of D2 (company owned by Bindra) has the effect of circumventing the injunction granted by the civil court and has the potential to cause irreparable prejudice to the Plaintiff (Maheshwari) who has also been subjected to injunction. Balance of convenience is also in the plaintiff’s favour.." the court remarked.
Thus, the high court ordered, "… Till the next date of hearing, Defendant No. 3 is restrained from publishing any defamatory/disparaging video against the plaintiff on any online or offline mode in line with the orders passed by the civil court."
As per Maheshwari's plea filed through Advocate Mumtaz Bhalla, it was stated that "..Plaintiffs have also suffered serious monetary loss directly attributable to the malafide actions ofthe Defendants inasmuch as Plaintiffs have already suffered a loss running into hundreds of crores,"
Since December 11, last year, Maheshwari and Bindra, both having around two dozen million subscribers on YouTube, have been engaged in a public feud following the release of a video titled 'Big Scam Exposed' indirectly implicating Bindra.
Post the upload of the video, Bindra also posted various videos in his channel starting a "YouTube" war.