Delhi High Court Orders Takedown of Posts Linking Amul to Cow Meat

The Delhi High Court has ordered the takedown of social media posts and videos that linked the dairy brand Amul to the supply of cow meat, holding the content prima facie disparaging. Justice Jyoti Singh passed the interim order on May 29 in a commercial suit filed by Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited and Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, the registered proprietor of the Amul mark. The Court directed defendants to remove five named URLs from Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and X within 36 hours, and barred them from re-uploading similar material.

In the same order, the Court told Meta, X, and YouTube to disclose subscriber details for the named accounts, including @Bharatvasi6 on X and @DhenuTV on YouTube, within four weeks, turning a takedown into an unmasking of a brand whose turnover crossed ₹1 lakh crore in FY 2025-26. The caption in at least one of the posts read, in the Court’s words, “Amul Doodh ki aad mein Gau Mans Supply.” The plaintiffs say the cartons visible in the videos were actually labelled fresh frozen buffalo meat under the brand name “Al-Jaza.”

What the Court Ordered

The case is Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited & Anr. v. R K Singh Rajput & Ors., registered as CS(COMM) 636/2026 with neutral citation 2026:DHC:4465. Justice Jyoti Singh granted ex parte ad interim relief in favour of the plaintiffs. GCMMF is the authorised user and exclusive marketer of Amul products in India and abroad, while KDCMPUL is the registered proprietor of the Amul mark and its variants, with registrations dating back to 1958. The plaintiffs sought interim protection under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Both plaintiffs are based in Gujarat, with GCMMF the federation that markets dairy produced across 18 district cooperative unions.

On the merits, Justice Singh held that the plaintiffs had made out a prima facie case for the grant of an ex parte ad interim injunction. The Bench found the balance of convenience favoured the plaintiffs and that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm without the order. Counsel for the plaintiffs told the Court, per the order, that “Once a reputation is lost, no amount of monetary compensation can retrieve the damage,” a framing the Bench accepted.

The operative directions restrain the defendants and all persons acting on their behalf from publishing or circulating any videos, posts, or other material containing content disparaging the plaintiffs or the well-known Amul trademark. Five specified URLs are to be taken down within 36 hours of service. Re-uploading identical or substantially similar material is prohibited until further orders. If the defendants fail to comply, the plaintiffs may notify the concerned intermediaries, which must then remove the content within 36 hours of receiving intimation.

The Video That Started It

A single Facebook video uploaded on April 7, 2026 triggered the suit. According to GCMMF’s account of the April 7, 2026 Facebook video, the post displayed a signboard bearing the federation’s name alongside visuals of cartons and asserted that the premises were being used to store, handle, distribute, or sell cow meat. The plaintiffs told the Court the cartons were actually labelled “fresh frozen buffalo meat” and carried a different brand name, “Al-Jaza,” and that the video juxtaposed the two to manufacture a false narrative.

The plaintiffs argued the video portrayed them as untrustworthy, unethical, and religiously offensive, and called on viewers to boycott products sold under the Amul mark. They produced screenshots, the video content, and details of the Amul trademark registrations, advertising expenditure, and turnover figures to establish goodwill in the suit. Counsel for the plaintiffs included Abhishek Singh, J. Amal Anand, Elvin Joshy, Shivani Kalra, K.V. Vibu Prasad, and Akshat Mishra; Raunaq Kamath appeared for YouTube. The Court declined to reproduce the videos in the body of the order, noting, for the sake of anonymity, that “contents and texts of the impugned publications/videos and the screenshots placed on record are not being extracted and included as a part of this order.” That choice did not weaken the plaintiffs’ case; it signalled the Court had already examined the material for the purpose of the interim application.

Still, the caption-level evidence was preserved. The Court quoted one caption directly: “Amul Doodh ki aad mein Gau Mans Supply.” It read the narrative as a deliberate attempt to “sensitize public sentiments relating to cow meat in India.”

The narrative and the posts are prima facie disparaging and demonstrate a deliberate attempt to sensitize public sentiments relating to cow meat in India and illustratively, one such narrative in the caption is Amul Doodh ki aad mein Gau Mans Supply.

Justice Jyoti Singh of the Delhi High Court made the observation in her order in CS(COMM) 636/2026, drawing the language from the captions placed on record by the plaintiffs.

A Network of Posts Across Four Platforms

The single Facebook video did not stay on Facebook. The Court found the impugned content had been “disseminating on various social media posts” with what its own order called “far and wide and global reach.” Plaintiffs catalogued reposts and reshares on YouTube, Instagram, and X, all of which the Court considered when assessing the scale of reputational harm alleged in the suit.

Running wider than the named defendants, the Court’s injunction restrains “the defendants and all persons acting on their behalf” from uploading or republishing, suggesting the sweep extends beyond the five. The case caption names R K Singh Rajput & Ors. as the lead defendant. The Court did not list the defendants’ individual names in the body of the order, citing anonymity. It did, however, name two specific handles publicly, the same pattern seen in a parallel Delhi High Court gag order against YouTube reviewers from April.

• Facebook: unnamed accounts ordered to take down posts under the same deadline.
• Instagram: same as Facebook; Meta ordered to disclose basic subscriber information within four weeks.
• YouTube: channel @DhenuTV named in the disclosure order.
• X: account @Bharatvasi6 named in the disclosure order.

The Disclosure Orders: The Bigger Lever

The takedown is the front-page line in the coverage. The disclosure direction buried in the same order is the more consequential one. Per the operative directions in the May 29 order, the Court directed Meta, X, and YouTube to provide the basic subscriber information: names, complete addresses, and other particulars of the operators of the identified accounts within four weeks.

Set against the takedown, the disclosure direction is the lever. If the platforms comply, the next stage of the suit gets personal. The Court exempted the plaintiffs from the mandatory pre-institution mediation step, citing urgency, and issued summons in the suit, so the disclosure direction feeds straight into active litigation, not pre-litigation settlement talks. The Court also directed the remaining defendants to file their written statements within 30 days of receiving the summons.

The named accounts are not household handles. The order directs YouTube to disclose details of its specified channel and X to disclose details of its specified account, while Meta must disclose BSI for the specified Facebook and Instagram accounts. The platforms now carry a statutory timetable, not a soft request.

On the same clock, the removal window echoes India’s intermediary rules under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which require intermediaries to act on court or government takedown notices within the same period. The Court’s order runs on that clock twice, once for the defendants to remove and once for the platforms to remove if notified.

The Brand Behind the Suit

Amul is not a typical plaintiff in a content suit. GCMMF is the largest fast-moving consumer goods organisation in India by turnover, per the federation’s FY 2025-26 turnover disclosure. The Amul brand’s turnover crossed ₹1 lakh crore in the financial year, growing 11% over a base of ₹90,000 crore in 2024-25.

By the federation’s own numbers, GCMMF’s sales turnover for FY 2025-26 was ₹73,450 crore, an 11.4 per cent increase over ₹65,911 crore the year before. The federation markets products made by 18 district cooperative milk unions across India and internationally. The Amul network collects around 31 million litres of milk every day from 36 lakh dairy farmers and sells products in more than 50 countries. The brand carries the tagline “The Taste of India,” in use since 1994, and the federation distributes more than 24 billion packs of milk and milk products every year.

The Amul mark is registered to KDCMPUL, which was founded on 14 December 1946, and the plaintiffs told the Court that registrations date back to 1958. Justice Jyoti Singh treated the goodwill as “formidable” and the mark as a “well-known mark” under the order. The reputational argument is the one the plaintiffs used to claim irreparable harm: monetary damages, they argued, cannot retrieve a lost reputation.

• Amul brand turnover, FY 2025-26: over ₹1 lakh crore (11% YoY).
• GCMMF sales turnover, FY 2025-26: ₹73,450 crore (11.4 per cent YoY).
• GCMMF sales turnover, FY 2024-25: ₹65,911 crore.
• Daily milk collection: 31 million litres.
• Dairy farmers in the network: 36 lakh.
• Countries sold in: more than 50.
• Cooperative member unions: 18.

Amul’s Long Court Record Against Critics

This is not the cooperative’s first defamation suit. The Delhi High Court has heard at least three earlier GCMMF actions against online content critical of its products. In December 2020, Justice V. Kameswar Rao directed ditchdairy.in to pull an article titled “White Lie of Amul and Black Truth of Animal Milk” and its Facebook page “Boycott milk” within a week, per the December 2020 ditchdairy.in takedown order. In the same window, the Court sought responses from a uploader of a video titled “Unholy Cattle of India: Exposing Cruelty in the Indian Dairy Industry.” The Print, reporting the pattern at the time, called it “the third case in which GCMMF has approached the Delhi High Court against ‘defamatory’ online content.”

By the federation’s own pattern, the 2020 suits used the same playbook the 2026 order uses: takedown of identified URLs, restraint on re-uploading, and orders to intermediaries. The brand also pursues trademark fights separately, including a 2024 injunction against an Italian confectioner using the mark “Amuleti.” The pattern, read across six years, is consistent: GCMMF uses the commercial suit route in Delhi whenever a post risks attaching the brand to meat, cruelty, or any religiously loaded claim.

GCMMF was extremely affected by defamatory articles because it covers around 80 per cent of the market with respect to milk and milk products.

Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma made the submission for GCMMF in the 17 December 2020 ditchdairy.in order, per The Print’s reporting of the hearing.

Dates Locked for the Next Hearings

The order is interim, not final, and the matter is now listed before the Joint Registrar on July 23, 2026. The Court will take it up on September 21, 2026.

Now statutory, the disclosure deadline for Meta, X, and YouTube runs from the date of the order. The removal clock for the five named URLs starts from the date each defendant is served. Until the Court says otherwise, the re-upload prohibition stays in force on every platform the Court considered.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the Delhi High Court actually order in the Amul cow meat case?

Justice Jyoti Singh granted an ex parte ad interim injunction in CS(COMM) 636/2026, restraining five defendants and all persons acting on their behalf from publishing content disparaging the Amul mark. The Court also ordered the takedown of five specified URLs on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X after service.

Who are the defendants in CS(COMM) 636/2026?

The lead defendant is R K Singh Rajput, with the case titled Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited & Anr. v. R K Singh Rajput & Ors. The Court did not name the remaining four defendants in the body of the order, citing anonymity, but directed disclosure of the operators behind the named X account and the named YouTube channel within four weeks.

What is the “Al-Jaza” brand named in the video?

Al-Jaza is the brand the plaintiffs say was actually printed on the cartons of meat shown in the April 7, 2026 video. The plaintiffs argued the video falsely juxtaposed the Al-Jaza branding with GCMMF signage to suggest the federation was handling cow meat, when the cartons were labelled fresh frozen buffalo meat. The argument is part of the prima facie case the Court found the plaintiffs had made out.

How long do Meta, X, and YouTube have to disclose account details?

The platforms have a month from the date of the order. Meta was directed to disclose basic subscriber information for the specified Facebook and Instagram accounts, X for @Bharatvasi6, and YouTube for @DhenuTV, including names, complete addresses, and other particulars.

When is the next hearing?

The matter is listed before the Joint Registrar on July 23, 2026, and before the Court on September 21, 2026. Defendants have 30 days from receipt of summons to file their written statements.