HC dismisses Mehul Choksi’s petition against Netflix Documentary  ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’; suggests alternate remedy via civil court [Read Order]

The Delhi High Court recently dismissed a petition filed by fugitive Mehul Choksi who sought that the release of a Documentary that was likely to go on the OTT platform Netflix on 2nd September 2020 would be detrimental to the ongoing investigation and trial.

In the petitioner, Mehul Choksi prayed for the following things:-

1. First, he suggested the court to pass appropriate writ to regulate the release of content having a possibly prejudicial effect on pending investigations and trials and to ensure that no prejudice is caused to the accused
2. Second, he suggested pre-screening of the documentary “Bad Boy Billionaires – India” before the court and the counsels
3. Further, he prayed the court not to release the relevant part or episode concerning the petitioner so as a fair trial is conducted without prejudice
4. Alternatively, he asked the court to postpone the release of the episode or part concerning the petitioner

The Counsel for Respondents bought to notice before the court the order passed by this Court in Justice for Rights Foundation vs. Union of India and Nikhil Bhalla vs. Union of India & Ors., to submit that a similar prayer has earlier been refused by the Division Benches of this Court. The respondents further contended that there is no regulation of the content on the OTT platforms by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY).

W.r.t the cases cited by the respondents, the petitioner took the stand that they were passed in public interest litigations and in any case, did not raise the specific issues of infringement of rights under Article 21 of the Constitution of India for a fair trial.

The Court was of the view that they were bound by the aforementioned judgments and therefore the first prayer was ought to be rejected. The honorable Judge, interestingly, opposed to citing any judgments said that, “I am intentionally not referring to the various judgments and submissions made by the learned counsels for the parties in this regard as in my opinion, a writ for enforcement of a private right in this manner cannot be maintained.” Further, he mentioned that whether the show telecast can cause any prejudice to the petitioner in the pending trial or not and whether it is based on information already in the public domain, et cetera, are questions that are best to be left to be determined by a civil court. It was stated however that, the petitioner had an alternate remedy in the civil court for infringement of his private right.

Read Order @Latestlaws.com