Delhi HC seeks response of Meta on historian Vikram Sampath's plea

New Delhi, Feb 24 The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of Meta Inc, the parent company of social media giant Facebook, on a plea moved by historian and V.D. Savarkar's biographer, Vikram Sampath alleging defamatory content against him has been circulated on the platform.

The bench of Justice Amit Bansal also asked the microblogging platform Twitter for the removal of several tweets made by American historian Audrey Truschke in which plagiarism allegations were made against Sampath in relation to the biography.

Recently, the same bench had restrained Truschke and others from publishing defamatory material against Sampath till April 1 on Twitter and other online or offline platforms.

Sampath approached the High Court after Truschke and others over a letter sent by them to Royal Historical Society raised allegations of plagiarism against him with respect to a journal publication and his two-volume biography of Savarkar and some alleged defamatory tweets made with regard to it.

In the plea, Sampath sought Rs 2 crore in damages from the three histor who have accused him of plagiarism.

Tech journalist Abhishek Baxi, Professor Ashok Swain, Twitter, and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology are the other respondents in the plea.

Sampath's plea contends that charges against him fall completely flat and are clearly libelous and the same is being done as part of an international smear campaign in order to discredit him because he has shown the academic courage and gumption to challenge the prevailing narrative around a historical figure like Savarkar.

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