Delhi High Court Directs Meta To Pull Down Fake Instagram Accounts Posting Obscene Photos Of Minor
Coming to the rescue of a 15-year-old minor girl, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday (June 25) directed Meta, which owns social media platform Instagram, to take action against fake accounts posting her obscene photos.Justice Manoj Jain further directed the platform to disclose details of the persons behind the fake accounts.“Defendant no. 1 is directed to provide Basic Subscriber...
Coming to the rescue of a 15-year-old minor girl, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday (June 25) directed Meta, which owns social media platform Instagram, to take action against fake accounts posting her obscene photos.
Justice Manoj Jain further directed the platform to disclose details of the persons behind the fake accounts.
“Defendant no. 1 is directed to provide Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) including IP details of said defendant nos. 2 to 6 and is also directed to action qua the URLs as mentioned in Prayer-A of the injunction application,” the bench ordered.
The injunction application was moved by the minor through her mother, in a suit seeking a permanent and mandatory injunction against the defendants as well as damages, for the manner in which she was represented on social media.
It is alleged that the defendants obtained obscene and objectionable photos of the minor through deceit in order to blackmail her. Some of the photographs were also stated to be morphed.
The plea further stated that the defendants have maintained anonymized profiles and, despite best efforts, their true identity and particulars are still not available.
“It seems that everything happened after innocuous acceptance of some request received by the minor victim and according to minor victim, various accounts have been created using her identity, thereby constituting a clear and deliberate act of impersonation,” the Court noted.
Finally stating that irreparable harm may be caused to the Petitioner if interim relief is not granted, the Court restrained the defendants from uploading any further objectionable material containing actual or morphed images of the minor, till next date of hearing.
The matter is now listed on September 08.
Appearance: Ms. Simran Brar, Mr. Raghav Awasthi Ms. Ojaswa Pathak, Mr. Mukesh Sharma, Mr. Dinesh Sharma and Ms. Tanya Lal, Advocates for Petitioner; Mr. Varun Pathak, Mr. Dhruv Bhatnagar and Ms. Nitya Nath, Advocates for R-1 Ms. Mamta Rani Jha, Ms. Shruttima Ehersa and Ms. Aiswarya Debadarshini, Advocates for R-8
Case title: Minor Victim Through Neetu Chadha v. Meta Platforms Inc & Ors.
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 712
Case no.: CS(OS)-395/2025