Such a person's influence may also make his audience believe the defamatory content to be true, thereby lowering the reputation of the aggrieved person. 77. Conversely, if a defamatory imputation is retweeted by an individual with negligible followers or very limited influence, the impact on the complainant's reputation may be less severe or may not even be of a nature to fall within the ambit of offence of defamation, since the limited or negligible reach of such a person would reduce the potential for the defamatory content to gain any significance among the right thinking members of the society, this of course, would be a matter of trial as to whether a person‟s retweet of defamatory content, with following of ten persons or zero persons would be sufficient to attract action under Section 499 of IPC. 78. If one analyses the facts of the present case in light of aforesaid observations, it is to be noted that in this case also, the respondent no. 2 had examined two witnesses at the pre-summoning stage who had deposed that they followed the present petitioner on Twitter, and they had seen the YouTube video which the petitioner had retweeted on his Twitter account, and after hearing the allegations contained in that video against the respondent no. 2 herein, they had immediately called respondent no. 2 to express their dismay. 79. Certainly, the harm inflicted upon the reputation of respondent no. 2, as claimed, by the actions of the petitioner herein, who not only commands a substantial social media following but also holds the position of the Chief Minister of Delhi, would be exponentially more than that resulting from thousands of retweets by other social media Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:ZEENAT PRAVEEN Signing Date:05.02.2024 16:25:50 CRL.M.C. 6347/2019 Page 44 of 50

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