In a landmark judgment dealing with the right to privacy in India, Delhi High Court recently held that the media cannot be restrained from reporting confidential information about a company pertaining to its upcoming projects and dealings with other companies.
In Petronet LNG Ltd v Indian Petro Group and Anr, petroleum company Petronet (plaintiff) sought an injunction against Indian Petro (defendants), the proprietor of the website www.indianpetro.com, to prevent it from publishing confidential or misleading information relating to Petronet’s negotiations and contracts on the website in any form, without the written consent of the plaintiff. It was alleged that the defendants, despite being aware of adverse consequences to the plaintiff, had published such confidential information, and that the website was disseminating confidential information which was affecting the plaintiff’s business prospects. The defendants contended that the question of how the plaintiff functions and conducts its affairs is a matter which the public has a right to know, and that therefore, as members of the media, they had the right to disseminate such information.
The issue presented to the court was whether Petronet can claim a right to privacy, and seek an injunction against the defendants from publishing articles or reports on their website.
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The update of court judgments is compiled by Bhasin & Co, Advocates, a corporate law firm based in New Delhi. The authors can be contacted at lbhasin@bhasinco.in, lbhasin@vsnl.com or lbhasin@gmail.com. Readers should not act on the basis of this information without seeking professional legal advice.
