The Court ruled Anurag Srivastava’s tweets were defamatory and damaging to Sardesai and TV Today.
Srivastava had already been restrained from posting such content and deleted the tweets
But the issue of damages was settled with compensation of ₹5 lakh.
Delhi High Court has ordered compensation of ₹5 lakh to be paid to TV Today Network on September 26, 2025. This happened because of a series of defamatory tweets against the media house and its senior anchor Rajdeep Sardesai.
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, in his September 3, 2025 order, observed that the tweets by social media user Anurag Srivastava amounted to reputational harm and loss of credibility for both the anchor and the network. The Court noted that Srivastava failed to justify his remarks “despite having been afforded sufficient opportunity.”
“Having considered the overall circumstances, this Court deems it just and proper to award ₹5,00,000 as general compensatory damages to the plaintiff, to redress the reputational harm, emotional hardship, and loss of professional credibility caused by the conduct of the defendant,” the order stated.
The defamatory remarks were posted in August–September 2020, shortly after Sardesai conducted an exclusive interview with actress Rhea Chakraborty, aired by India Today under the segment Super Explosive.
The tweets flagged by TV Today targeted both Rajdeep Sardesai and the network. In one, Sardesai was called “Dalla,” a derogatory term meaning pimp. Another compared him to Zakir Naik with the hashtag #ShameOnAajTak. Srivastava also alleged that Rhea Chakraborty had paid ₹8 crore to Sardesai and India Today for the interview, adding the remark “RIP 4th Pillar of Democracy.”
TV Today argued that such statements were abusive, false, and amounted to a deliberate attack on its anchor’s reputation.
The defamation suit was filed in 2020 against the culprit, Anurag Srivastava—who ran the handles @theanuragkts and @theanuragoffice—as well as Twitter (now X).
A coordinate bench had earlier restrained Srivastava from publishing or republishing defamatory content against Sardesai or TV Today. He later deleted the posts and gave an undertaking not to repost them. However, the issue of damages remained pending.
In its order, the Court clarified that although Srivastava had complied with interim directions, the defamatory nature of the original tweets could not be overlooked. With no fixed formula to quantify harm, the Court applied the principle of general damages and fixed compensation at ₹5 lakh.
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TV Today submitted that the tweets not only harmed its professional credibility but also impacted its revenue. The company pointed out that its total income declined from ₹899.57 crore in 2019–20 to ₹819.92 crore in 2020–21, attributing part of the damage to the smear campaign.
The network also contended that the remarks were part of a premeditated and systematic attack designed to discredit both Sardesai and the organization in the eyes of the public.
Disposing of the suit, Justice Kaurav emphasized that defamatory content on social media has a far-reaching impact and cannot be taken lightly. The Court therefore ordered Srivastava to pay ₹5 lakh in damages to TV Today, in addition to the earlier restraint on posting defamatory material. [Rh/VP]
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