The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered the removal within 24 hours of all existing allegedly defamatory content — including reports, social media posts and videos — uploaded from IP addresses in India that link Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s daughter, Himayani Puri, to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Delhi HC orders removal of posts linking Puri’s daughter to Epstein
A bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna declined to order an immediate global takedown, but directed that material uploaded outside India be blocked in the country.
The court also issued summons in Himayani Puri’s defamation suit and fixed August 7 as the next date of hearing.
“Issue summons. Defendants number 1 to 14 and defendant number 21 (John Doe— unknown parties) are directed to forthwith take down/remove the URLs, links of the impugned content as detailed within a period of 24 hours. In case the content is not taken down in 24 hours, defendant number 15 to 18 (social media intermediaries) shall take down, remove and block access to the posts, articles and links as detailed in annexure A,” the court said.
It added that the directions would operate within India. “The present injunction applies to content uploaded from IP addresses within India. In respect of URLs uploaded from outside India, the defendants are directed to disable access to such content within the Indian domain,” the order said.
The directions came after Himayani Puri’s counsel, Mahesh Jethmalani, Pramod Kumar Dubey and Shantanu Agarwal, sought a global takedown, arguing that their client, a New York resident, had been subjected to a “scurrilous attack” solely because she is the daughter of a Union minister.
Counsel for social media intermediaries, including Google and Meta, opposed the plea, arguing that the issue of whether Indian courts can order global takedowns is pending before a division bench. Senior advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for Meta, submitted that the court could, however, issue directions for content uploaded within India.
In her suit, Himayani Puri said that from February 22, 2026, a series of false and defamatory posts were published and amplified across platforms including X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and various digital portals. She alleged that the claims were propagated through sensationalist formats, including edited videos, misleading captions and doctored thumbnails, designed to maximise outrage.