A Sri Lanka Supreme Court judge has approached the Karnataka High Court seeking directions to Google India and the Union government to remove allegedly defamatory online content and block the URLs of some news reports published against him in publications in Sri Lanka.
After a brief hearing on Thursday, Justice Sachin Shankar Maghadom issued notices to the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Google India.
The HC directed the Union government and Google India to respond to Nawaz’s justice petition by March 16, the date of the next hearing. The court also ordered the petitioner to issue a personal notice via email to “Colombo Telegraph” and “Lankaenews”.
Justice Ahmed Nawaz, the fourth most senior judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, approached the Supreme Court alleging that some articles and online search results published in 2015 and 2020 had caused serious damage to his “international reputation” as a jurist.
The petition states that Justice Nawaz cannot pursue defamation proceedings in Sri Lanka because doing so, as a judge of the Supreme Court, would be contrary to the principle that “no person shall be a judge in his own case”.
He invoked the jurisdiction of the Karnataka High Court arguing that the alleged defamation is being spread through online platforms and that Google India’s headquarters is located in Bengaluru.
The petition also asserts that courts have recognized that the location of the server or the headquarters of the entity hosting the content may be taken into account when determining jurisdiction in cases involving online defamation.
Justice Nawaz stated that the articles, which are widely circulated on the internet, contain baseless allegations and continue to appear in online searches for his name. According to the petition, the content has traveled “beyond the shores of Sri Lanka” and has caused “serious damage to his reputation in the international legal community.”
His lawyer, Attorney R. Prabhakaran, told the Supreme Court that the articles, which are widely circulated on the Internet, containing baseless allegations, continue to appear in online searches for his name.
The Sri Lankan judge said in his petition that the posts were “nothing less than a murder of his reputation and an assassination of his character,” and claimed they constituted a calculated attempt to undermine the dignity he had earned as a judge and academic.
It issued a legal notice on September 12, 2023 to Google and publishers demanding the removal of the allegedly defamatory material. However, the content was not removed. According to lawyer Prabhakaran, Google responded that it could not remove the links without a court order.
Prabhakaran also told the Supreme Court that the online posts included search results in which derogatory descriptions such as “dirty judge” appeared next to the petitioner’s name.
He said the allegations stem from a legal opinion made by the judge while serving as Deputy Solicitor General of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and that no misconduct was found during his tenure as a judge.
Relying on Article 21 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, the petition says that the protection of dignity under this provision is not limited to Indian citizens but extends to all individuals, including foreign nationals.
The petition said that the continued circulation of the allegedly defamatory material violates Justice Nawaz’s right to dignity and reputation. It also affirms that “the right not to be subjected to defamatory statements is a universally recognized legal principle.”
Justice Nawaz urged the Karnataka High Court to direct the Union Ministry and Google India to remove the defamatory URLs and prevent their further reproduction. He also asked the court to direct the authorities to completely block the search results and allow him to “be forgotten because of the crime he never committed.”
The alleged defamatory articles reportedly relate to controversies surrounding financial improprieties linked to former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the circumstances surrounding the appointment of Justice Nawaz to head the Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka in 2020, which had drawn criticism in some media reports.
