Justice Mini Pushkarna registers the plaint as a formal suit but declines to grant an interim injunction against the broadcast at this stage
NEW DELHI — The darling of the Godi media and Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV, Arnab Goswami, was on Tuesday summoned by the Delhi High Court in a defamation suit filed by the Congress party. The country’s main opposition party had alleged that Goswami falsely claimed on his channel that the Istanbul Congress Centre in Türkey was the office of the Indian National Congress.
Arnab Goswami allegedly indulges in communal and polarising debates on his channel, part of the mainstream media, euphemistically called Godi Media. It is a pejorative term coined and popularised by veteran journalist Ravish Kumar to describe segments of the Indian mainstream media—particularly television news channels and their anchors—that are perceived as excessively subservient to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This segment of the media seldom questions government policies, but always berates the opposition.
Issuing the summons, Justice Mini Pushkarna registered the plaint as a formal suit but declined to grant an interim injunction against the broadcast at this stage, noting that the content in question was aired in May 2025.
Goswami has been asked by the court to file a response to the plea for interim relief within four weeks and has listed the matter for the next hearing on May 19.
The counsel for the Congress argued that the false claim was made in the volatile backdrop of the Pahalgam terrorist attack, at a time when India-Turkey relations were already strained due to the latter’s perceived support for Pakistan. The counsel submitted that the content had caused and continued to cause serious damage to the party’s reputation. “Offending content continues to do damage. People are still talking about it. They have admitted it is false,” the counsel told the court while pressing for an immediate stay on the broadcast.
Justice Pushkarna, however, noted the time that had elapsed since the broadcast and said she would give a short date before deciding on interim relief. “May 15, 2025, was the broadcast. I will give you a short date,” she observed.
The Delhi defamation suit is not the only legal action arising from the controversy. In May 2025, the Indian Youth Congress’s legal cell head, Shrikant Swaroop B N, filed a complaint with the Bengaluru police against both Goswami and BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, accusing them of spreading false information. The complaint was registered as an FIR and alleged that both individuals had maliciously propagated the fabricated claim that the Istanbul Congress Centre in Turkiye was the office of the Indian National Congress, at a time when such a claim could inflame public sentiment against the party.
The investigation in that Bengaluru case was subsequently stayed by the Karnataka High Court.
