Geo-Blocking/Global Injunctions Vis-À-Vis National Sovereignty

The Hon'ble Delhi High Court in its recent judgment in Swami Ramdev and another v. Facebook, Inc. and others¹ held that Indian Court can grant a global injunction in respect of the offending material or content, in order to disable or block the content on a global basis.

Factual Matrix

The suit was initiated by the Plaintiffs- Swami Ramdev and Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. against Facebook Inc., Google Inc., YouTube LLC, Google Plus, Twitter International Company and Ashok Kumar (John Doe) (Defendant Nos.1 to 6 respectively) praying for a permanent and mandatory injunction and damages.

The gist of the allegation is that based on a book titled 'Godman to Tycoon- the Untold Story of Baba Ramdev', various defamatory remarks have been disseminated over the Defendants' platforms. The defamatory content contained in the said book was the subject matter of a judgment passed in CM (M) 556/2018 wherein a Learned Single Judge had restrained the publisher and author from