What the court is not expected to tell media

The Supreme Court's remark in Wikipedia case offers a moment of clarity in the relations between two important institutions

- Gautam Bhatia

On May 9, the Supreme Court handed down an important judgment in a long-running litigation between Asian News International (ANI) and Wikipedia (and its parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation). ANI had originally sued Wikipedia on the ground that the Wikipedia page for ANI had certain disparaging remarks about its independence and impartiality. A single judge of the Delhi High Court (HC)—which was hearing the case—had initially passed an interim order requiring Wikipedia to disclose its subscriber details.

To those familiar with how an online, crowd-sourced encyclopaedia works, what followed should not be surprising. Considering the public importance of the case, a fresh page was created on Wikipedia chronicling the legal developments, the contents of which were debated on the website's Talk forum. ANI's lawyers complained about this to the division bench of the Delhi HC, which was hearing Wikipedia's appeal against the single judge's order. The Division Bench noted that the page's observation that the single judge's order amounted to "censorship and a threat to flow of information" amounted to "an interference in judicial proceedings" that bordered on "contempt." It directed Wikipedia to take down the pages within 36 hours.