Delhi HC adjourns to Oct 13 hearing on Mehul Choksi's plea against Netflix's documentary

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday adjourned till October 13 hearing on a petition filed by businessman and diamantaire Mehul Choksi, who is an accused in the PNB scam, against Netflix's documentary titled "Bad Boy Billionaires".

A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan, hearing Choksi's petition against the order of a single-judge bench dismissing his earlier plea seeking pre-screening of the documentary, deferred the matter to October 13.

During the last hearing, Choksi's lawyer Vijay Aggarwal had asked is Netflix permitted to violate an individual's fundamental rights. Aggarwal also asked whether Netflix's claim to remain unregulated and being beyond the jurisdiction of writ courts in India is legal.

Appearing for Choksi, advocates Aggarwal, Mudit Jain and Anshul Agarwal argued that it is a travesty of justice that a person had approached the writ court for protection of his fundamental rights to a fair investigation, which is a facet under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, however, he was relegated to avail his remedies before the civil court.

Senior advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul and Dayan Krishnan, appearing for Netflix, had argued that the appellant is not entitled to any relief, as he is not a Citizen of India, as he has forsaken his citizenship, and therefore, not entitled to the protection of any fundamental right.

Earlier, Choksi's plea was dismissed by the single bench of Justice Naveen Chawla, who observed that there are no regulations to control the content on the over-the-top (OTT) media service, and asked him to approach the appropriate forum or file a civil suit in the matter.

The documentary, which is said to be based on the rise and fall of India's most infamous billionaires including Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi other business tycoons accused in several alleged scams, was scheduled to release on September 2.

However, the release of the documentary was stayed by a Hyderabad court. A Bihar court had also restrained Netflix from using Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy's name in its documentary -- "Bad Boy Billionaires".

In his plea before the single-judge bench, Choksi had sought pre-screening of the documentary and directions to the Central government to take steps to regulate the Netflix Inc and Netflix Entertainment Service India LLP insofar as the release of content having the possibly prejudicial effect on pending investigations and trials is concerned.

(ANI)