ANI Media Private Limited has filed a lawsuit against Wikipedia in the Delhi High Court alleging defamation, according to Live Law. ANI has sought to prevent Wikipedia from publishing what it claims is defamatory content on its page and seeks its removal. The news agency has also demanded Rs 2 crore in damages.

Justice Navin Chawla has issued a notice on ANI’s plea seeking interim relief, scheduling a hearing for August 20.

ANI’s lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation and its officials claims they intentionally published false and defamatory content to harm the agency’s reputation and goodwill. It also claimed that Wikimedia officials actively prevented edits attempting to correct this content.

The Wikipedia page on ANI alleges that the news agency acts as a propagandist for the government, disseminating information from unreliable sources, and inaccurately reporting events.

The news agency has been “criticised for having served as a propaganda tool for the incumbent central government, distributing materials from a vast network of fake news websites, and misreporting events,” the page said.

ANI’s advocate, Sidhanth Kumar, argues that the description is defamatory, and Wikipedia, an intermediary, is a platform used as public utility and as such cannot behave as a private sector. Kumar added that Wikipedia restricted ANI from editing its own page except for its own editors.

ANI recently filed a copyright infringement suit against PTI over alleged plagiarism of video content. The court has directed PTI to respond by August 9, 2024. In this case, ANI seeks a permanent injunction and Rs 2 crore in damages from PTI for publishing videos related to an incident aboard a SpiceJet plane. Senior Advocate Chander Lall, representing ANI, insisted on PTI removing the videos and declined court-mediated settlement offers.