Delhi HC restrains Netflix from streaming documentary on 7-year-old school kid’s death

The Delhi High Court has restrained OTT (over the top) platform Netflix from streaming a documentary titled, “A Big Little Murder”. The high court passed the order on a petition filed by a Gurugram-based school, where the child studied.

The school had approached the Delhi High Court through its trust seeking direction against the streaming of the documentary, which was being promoted on the website of Channel News Asia (CNA) and Netflix.

The documentary had been released on Netflix on August 6 and featured the death of the child in 2017.

The counsel appearing for the school — Karanjawala and Co. — told the court, “The documentary used the name of the plaintiff’s school and the visuals of the plaintiff’s school building which was done in complete violation of the order dated 08.01.2018 passed by the Ld. Additional Session Judge, Gurugram, Haryana wherein the court had directed, inter-alia, to protect and safeguard the privacy and reputation of the parties.”

That order had also directed to use imaginary names instead of the original name of the student, the school or the accused in the case.

“The name of the victim, accused and school be not used and imaginary names ought to be given to the victim, accused and the school. The name of the school as per the order dated 08.01.2018 is to be mentioned as ‘Vidyalya’,” the order had said.

After hearing the matter at length, the Delhi High Court found that the school had made out a prima facie case. It accordingly directed that CNA and Netflix not to stream the documentary on their website or OTT platform.

The Delhi High Court, however, directed that the streaming of the documentary could be done only if all scenes, wherein references to the plaintiff’s school, use of the name of plaintiff’s school and visuals of the plaintiff’s school building, are removed.

Besides this, the Delhi High Court also referred to the order passed on January 22 this year, staying the release of a book on the same case as it contained references and used the name of the school. India Today