Remove defamatory videos: High court to YouTuber Maridhas after News18 files Rs 1.5 crore defamation suit

The Madras High Court has restrained YouTuber Maridhas from uploading defamatory videos against TV18 Broadcast Limited, which owns News18 Tamil Nadu, while also directing him to remove defamatory videos that he's already posted.

The high court's move came after Network18 and editor M Gunasekaran filed a Rs 1.5 crore civil defamation suit against Maridhas, after the latter attacked News18 Tamil Nadu and its journalists for being "anti-Hindu" and affiliated to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

Maridhas had subsequently posted an email on social media, purportedly from the channel's associate executive editor Vinay Sarawagi, that "accepted all the allegations". Sarawagi said the email was "forged". He also pointed out that the screenshot posted by Maridhas showed that the email was from a ProtonMail server, and ProtonMail told Sarawagi that the email address seemed to have been created for the sole purpose of sending the "forged" email.

News18 Tamil Nadu then filed a police complaint against Maridhas earlier this month in this regard, while also accusing him of inciting "communal disturbance". The Chennai police's crime branch subsequently registered an FIR against Maridhas for multiple offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, including forgery and hacking. The channel then approached the court with a defamation suit after the Chennai police "failed to act on their complaint", the News Minute reports.

Maridhas is a well-known and controversial YouTuber based in Madurai. In 2018, he wrote a book titled Why I Support Narendra Modi, and has frequently hit out at the DMK with videos such as "Is DMK influenced by Pakistan" and "Should the DMK be banned".

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