HC restrains Aniruddha Malpani from posting defamatory content against WhiteHat Jr

The Delhi High Court has given an ad-interim injunction to WhiteHat Jr against Aniruddha Malpani, a doctor, angel investor and a critic of the edtech company, and has restrained him from posting and publishing any derogatory and deprecatory content against WhiteHat Jr and its management.

In a hearing that came just a day after the court had restrained Pradeep Poonia, another staunch critic of the Byju’s-owned coding platform, the court in its order today directed Malpani to delete some select tweets and it also said that there was no trademark infringement in this case. 

On Monday, WhiteHat Jr filed a defamation suit worth Rs 14 crore against Malpani.

WhiteHat Jr and its CEO Karan Bajaj got a limited injunction against Pradeep Poonia who was using an account with the name WhiteHat Sr for posting content against the company and its management.

Malpani has been airing his strong views on social media platforms against Byju’s and WhiteHat Jr. Over the past year, he has been writing against the alleged malpractices of the two companies on his social media accounts. Following his tirade against the edtech major, LinkedIn had restricted his account permanently in July this year.

The court will hear the matter on January 14 next year.

Early this year, Bajaj and his firm had sold their stake to Byju’s in an all-cash deal worth $300 million. Soon after, WhiteHat Jr started facing wrath from parents, activists and media for misleading advertisements. 

WhiteHat Jr used the names of Elon Musk, Tesla, Sundar Pichai and Google among others for advertising its courses. The Advertising Council of India also frowned upon some of its advertisements and asked them to take down.