You can access the court order from here
The Delhi High Court on April 28, TechWiser (founded by Mrinal Saha, with Pratik Rai as on-screen host, 2.52 million subscribers) and TechBar (run by Sanchit Shokeen, 5.72 million subscribers) from making disparaging statements about AI+ Smartphones and its founder Madhav Sheth, on any social media or digital platform, without hearing either channel before passing the order. The order also includes a John Doe clause, which extends the restraint to unnamed future critics, covering speech that has not yet occurred. The next hearing is October 5.
Part of a growing pattern: This is the second ex-parte disparagement injunction, meaning an order passed without hearing the other side, against YouTube critics of a consumer tech brand in as many weeks. In April, Motorola obtained a similar order from a Bengaluru court naming 17 YouTube channels and all major platforms, with creators learning about it only after X’s support team emailed them.
Apar Gupta, founding director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), told MediaNama at the time that John Doe clauses were designed for piracy cases involving genuinely unidentifiable infringers and their migration into defamation litigation marks a significant expansion of judicial power. “They structurally incentivise over-removal of online criticism, with the user whose speech is taken down having the least effective remedy of any party in the system,” he said.
About AI+ Smartphones: NxtQuantum Shift Technologies operates AI+ Smartphones. Founder Madhav Sheth previously co-founded Realme India in 2018 before departing in June 2023. He launched AI+ in July 2025, marketing it around data sovereignty, the claim that Indian user data stays in India and is not shared with external parties. Per the company, phones run on NxtQuantum OS and are manufactured at United Telelinks’ Noida facility, with data stored on MeitY-approved Google Cloud infrastructure.
What the videos said: TechWiser’s “[This Indian Phone Is A Marketing Disaster!]” posted April 9 had 2.59 lakh views, and TechBar’s “[FAKE Indian Company – Needs to STOP]” posted April 14 had 3.32 lakh views at the time of filing.
Key findings from TechWiser’s hands-on review of the AI+ Pulse 2:
TechBar’s findings per its video transcript, as filed before the court:
TechWiser’s video also raised questions about Sheth’s track record. According to TechWiser, he previously led HonorTech India, which stopped launching phones after 2024 and went silent despite denying shutdown rumours, and Nexel India, which holds Alcatel’s rights in India and similarly stopped launching products after a few models. MediaNama has not independently verified these claims.
How the court reasoned: Justice Tushar Rao Gedela reviewed the video transcripts, not the devices, and found the conclusions lacked any formal technical examination by a credible agency. He applied the disparagement test from Dabur India vs Colortek Meghalaya, a legal standard requiring a plaintiff to show that a statement is untrue or misleading, made maliciously, and caused financial damage. At the interim stage the court assesses this only prima facie, meaning it checks whether a case appears strong enough on first look rather than whether it will succeed at trial.
The court found that the statements bordered on disparagement and that the untested analysis had the potential to cause financial loss to AI+ Smartphones. The court reached this conclusion by reviewing the same transcripts, without conducting any independent technical examination of the devices.
The San Nutrition precedent: The order itself cites San Nutrition Pvt Ltd vs Arpit Mangal to lay out the disparagement test. In that 2025 case, the Delhi High Court refused to grant an injunction against influencers who posted critical product reviews, finding that lab reports supported the influencers’ claims and that their defences of truth and fair comment were not clearly untenable. TechWiser’s videos included hands-on ADB testing and direct references to AI+ Smartphones’ own privacy policy.
Safe harbour implications: The suit names YouTube as a defendant alongside the channels. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India, Section 79 of the IT Act protects platforms like YouTube from liability for user-posted content, a protection known as safe harbour. Platforms lose that immunity only upon receipt of a court order or government notification. Gupta told MediaNama in the context of the Motorola case that naming platforms at the outset of a private defamation suit strips safe harbour before any final determination, and that this provides a template for consumer electronics brands to use litigation as a content moderation tool.
MeitY’s draft IT Amendment Rules, 2026 propose making compliance with government advisories mandatory for platforms to retain Section 79 protections.
The John Doe problem: Beyond TechWiser and TechBar, the order restrains unnamed future defendants under the Ashok Kumar clause, a John Doe mechanism originally developed for copyright piracy cases where infringers were genuinely unidentifiable. MediaNama has tracked its use expanding into defamation suits, with such orders leading to collateral takedowns of unrelated content. Any person posting similar criticism of AI+ Smartphones now faces potential legal action without prior notice.
Defendants can challenge the order under Order XXXIX Rule 4 of the CPC (Code of Civil Procedure, 1908), a provision allowing a party to seek vacation or modification of an ex-parte injunction on grounds they were not heard or that the balance of convenience was misapplied.
What AI+ Smartphones said: AI+ Smartphones told MediaNama: “There is a clear distinction between fair criticism and deliberate defamation. The content lacked any credible technical basis or independent verification. We do not seek to silence legitimate reviewers or suppress honest feedback.”
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