Supreme Court: The Division Bench of Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, JJ., while considering the dispute between Wikimedia and Asian News International (ANI), stated that Courts are open institutions to the public and the media reporting about judicial proceedings cannot be curbed lightly. The Bench stated that Courts as a public institution should always be open to the public, and the issues which are even sub-judice can be debated by the public and the press. “It is not the duty of the Court to tell the media to delete this and take that down… Both the judiciary and the media are the foundational pillars of democracy, which is a basic feature of the Constitution. For a liberal democracy to thrive, both should supplement each other,“
The Court on 9-5-2025 set aside Delhi High Court’s order, directing the deletion of a Wikipedia page on defamation proceedings initiated by ANI against Wikimedia on the ground that the page was prima facie contemptuous and amounted to interference in court proceedings.
[Wikimedia Foundation Inc. v. ANI Media Private Limited, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1075, decided on: 09-05-2025]
Source: Press
