Delhi HC pulls up Wikipedia for non-compliance of order

The Delhi high court on Thursday pulled up Wikipedia for its failure to comply with the court’s order directing the open-source online platform to disclose information about the subscribers who edited the page of news platform Asian News International (ANI).
The court also threatened the platform with passing an order asking the government to close its business transactions in India.
A bench of justice Navin Chawla issued a stark ultimatum after Wikipedia’s counsel argued that it had to make certain submissions regarding the order and that it took them time to appear before the court as the entity was not based in India.
“I will impose contempt… It is not a question of Defendant No 1 [Wikipedia] not being an entity in India. We will close your business transactions here. We will ask the government to block Wikipedia… Earlier also you people have taken this argument. If you don’t like India, please don’t work in India,” the judge said to the Wikipedia counsel.
Considering the contention, justice Chawla remarked that the court in earlier matters had rejected similar arguments made by the platform. Consequently, the court issued notice in the ANI’s plea and ordered for in-person attendance of the platform’s authorised representative on October 25, the next date of hearing.
The HC took strong exception to the platform’s conduct while considering a plea filed by ANI, alleging that Wikipedia failed to comply with the high court’s August 20 order, which directed the platform to disclose the information about three people who made the edits.
The August 20 order was passed in connection with the lawsuit filed by ANI seeking to restrain the platform from publishing allegedly defamatory content about the news agency and seeking removal of the contentious content.