Blow to Chaudhuri? Gwalior court lifts ban on 'defamatory' IIPM stories

A court in Gwalior has ordered the unblocking of more than 70 URLs related to Arindam Chaudhuri’s IIPM, which were allegedly of defamatory nature, according to this report by NDTV. The blocking was carried out as a result of a petition by one Ruchiv Sharma. [caption id=“attachment_643624” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Setback to Choudhari?[/caption] According to the court order, posted on Indian Law and Technology Blog, “the plaintiff is an exclusive CEP (part of counselor engagement programme) of IIPM in this region.” As part of the agreement with the institute, Sharma guides students in the region on courses offered by the institute, said the petition. The block order, signed by Subodh Saxena of DoT, also covered the URLs of UGC stating that IIPM is not a UGC recognised institute. The blocking of the URLs elicited massive outrage both online and off it, with many websites reproducing the blocked content, and many media organisations writing scathing criticisms of IIPM and Choudhari. The IIPM website was also hacked by Anonymous. However Chaudhuri remained defiant. “As far as satire sites are concerned, I neither have any objections on any satire, nor would I have filed anything against them were I to do the same personally. In a democracy, satire is basic freedom of speech. However, I am glad that defamatory links with malicious interests have been ordered to be removed. UGC’s false campaign is utterly defamatory against which IIPM has also released public notices in newspapers and the same are available on the net. So there is no doubt about the defamatory intent of the UGC/AICTE campaign and I am glad that the court has now ordered the removal of those links.”, he said in an exclusive email interview with _Firstpost_ . As pointed out in this article , The details of the complaint seemed confirm the fears of free speech activists that websites can be blocked for the slightest reason. The information in this case was blocked not due to any pressing threat to national security or law and order but because it contained negative information. And this in turn caused some measure of inconvenience to a consultant whose business is to advise students on courses offered by that same educational institute. There is any number of sites offering negative opinions on a wide variety of educational institutes on the web. The question is whether these too will be deemed illegal merely because it contradicts the advice offered by any particular educational consultant.