The Delhi High Court on Monday (Nov 11) dismissed an appeal filed by the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia platform, against a single court’s order ordering it to disclose the subscriber details of three people who edited the Asian News International (ANI) Wikipedia page.

That’s after both sides entered into a consent order and settled the matter.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said the single judge was free to proceed with ANI’s defamation suit against Wikipedia in accordance with the law.

The bank also allowed Wikipedia to serve subpoenas related to the ANI defamation suit to people who edited the news agency’s page.

Last month, senior counsel Akhil Sibal, appearing for Wikipedia, said he had instructions to resolve the matter amicably. Sibal is briefed by counsel Nikhil Narendran.

Sibal and advocate Siddhant Kumar appearing for ANI exchanged their consent drafts with certain terms. The Consent Order was then accepted by both parties with minor modifications by both parties.

“The appeal is settled with the agreement of the parties…,” the Tribunal said, directing the lawyers on file for both sides to sign the order sheet tomorrow.

“The Single Judge is free to proceed with the matter in accordance with law. The rights and dispute of both parties are left open“, added the Bank.

Earlier, the Court ordered Wikipedia to remove a page about ongoing defamation proceedings before the single judge. After Wikipedia did the same, the court closed a contempt claim brought by ANI.

The dispute arose after ANI filed a defamation suit against Wikipedia for allegedly defaming the news agency’s description.

On August 20, Wikipedia was ordered by the Court to disclose to ANI the subscriber details of the three people available with it within two weeks. ANI then filed a contempt plea against Wikipedia, alleging non-compliance with the order in question.

ANI tried to prevent Wikipedia from publishing allegedly defamatory content on the news agency’s page on its platform. It also requested that the content be removed. ANI also sought Rs. 2 million in damages from Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia page says ANI “has been criticized for serving as a propaganda tool for the sitting central government, distributing material from a vast network of fake news websites and misreporting events.”

In its lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation and its officials, ANI said the former had published palpably false and defamatory content with the malicious intent to tarnish the news agency’s reputation and discredit its goodwill.

Case title: Wikimedia Foundation v. ANI & Ors.