The Delhi High Court has ordered Anurag Srivastava to pay T.V. Today Network Limited Rs 5 lakh in general compensatory damages over defamatory social-media posts targeting journalist Rajdeep Sardesai. In its 3 September 2025 decision, the court said the award addressed reputational harm, emotional hardship and loss of professional credibility. TV Today had sought Rs 2,00,00,100; the court awarded Rs 5 lakh, and each side must bear its own costs.
What did the Delhi High Court decide?
In T.V. Today Network Limited v. Anurag Srivastava and Twitter Inc., CS(OS) 278/2020, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav awarded TV Today Rs 5 lakh as general compensatory damages on 3 September 2025. The court said defamation damages could not be assessed by a mathematical formula and applied the principle of general damages instead. LiveLaw’s report on the decision quotes the judgment’s reasoning.
The court directed each party to bear its own costs. The final decision addressed damages and costs; injunction-related relief had already been dealt with in earlier orders. Twitter and Google were removed from the party array in those earlier proceedings, and neither was ordered to pay this award.
Why did TV Today sue?
The dispute followed Sardesai’s 27 August 2020 interview with actor Rhea Chakraborty for India Today and Aaj Tak. The judgment recounts posts published in late August and early September 2020 that insulted Sardesai, compared him with Zakir Naik, and alleged that Chakraborty had paid Sardesai and India Today Rs 8 crore for the interview.
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Those statements were allegations in the posts, not established facts. The court found the objectionable tweets highly defamatory and unsubstantiated, despite giving Srivastava an opportunity to substantiate them. He had taken down the posts and undertaken not to republish defamatory statements; the court recorded that he had not published further defamatory material after filing his affidavit. Bar & Bench’s case report also describes the ruling.
How does the Rs 5 lakh award compare with the claim?
| Figure | What it represents |
|---|---|
| Rs 2,00,00,100 | TV Today’s original damages claim, as stated in the judgment; this was the amount sought, not the award. |
| Rs 5,00,000 | The general compensatory damages awarded by the Delhi High Court to TV Today on 3 September 2025. |
The judgment also records TV Today’s evidence that its total income was Rs 899.57 crore in 2019–20 and Rs 819.92 crore in 2020–21. The company attributed the decline to the posts, but the court’s award was for general damages; it did not find that the posts caused the entire change in income. The judgment records the plaintiff’s assertion that the allegation circulated to more than 7,200 of Srivastava’s Twitter followers; that figure is the company’s evidence, not an independently verified platform statistic.
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What the award does—and does not—mean
- It is compensation to TV Today: the named plaintiff was T.V. Today Network Limited, and the damages order was directed against Anurag Srivastava.
- It is not the full amount TV Today claimed: the court awarded Rs 5 lakh rather than Rs 2,00,00,100.
- It is not a calculated reimbursement of the company’s reported income decline: the court used general damages, not a finding that the posts produced the entire year-to-year change.
- It is separate from the earlier injunction relief: the final ruling resolved the remaining damages and costs questions.
The controlling document is the Delhi High Court decision dated 3 September 2025.
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