WhiteHat Jr defamation case against Pradeep Poonia could backfire on Karan Bajaj and team

WhiteHat Jr and its founder and CEO Karan Bajaj had recently filed a ₹20 crore defamation suit against Pradeep Poonia. The latter, who goes by the pseudonym, WhiteHat Snr or WhiteHat Sr, has fiercely criticized WhiteHat Jr's online ads. He points to unethical advertising tactics, the scamming of parents in the name of teaching coding to kids. In the past two months alone WhiteHat Jr has censored more than 20 pieces of content on YouTube, Twitter, etc. In fact, Karan Bajaj got Poonia's LinkedIn account banned, by allegedly calling out for mass reporting.

The case that went into Delhi Court, had asked Poonia to take down 12 tweets and 4 videos from his Social Media handles. The case that went for defamation, privacy invasion and copyright infringement, is yet to come to a conclusion. But, DHC did not ask Poonia to change his social media handle names, despite the biggest allegation on him is infringing the name "WhiteHat Jr". Yet, referring to Sukumar's submission that fair criticism includes right to parody, Delhi HC asks Sukumar to show how the present case uses 'parody', which the HC also disputed and asked to prove.

Poonia's lawyer states that the name is only a parody. It would infringe any trademark or copyright only if involved any personal gain. But, since Poonia is only trying to voice concerns over the scam that White Hat Jr is; it does not fit into the definition of copyright or trademark infringement. WhiteHat Jr has also sued Anirudh Malpani, another staunch critic, doctor and angel investor. His, was on the grounds of “incessant posting of false and defamatory tweets which are causing severe damage to WhitHat Jr’s reputation and business through waging a systematic attack on WhiteHat Jr over social media."

WhiteHat Jr defamation case against Pradeep Poonia could backfire on Karan Bajaj and team

During a time when the company is already under controversy; yet the data 2.8 lakh teachers and students stands exposed, it may lead to severe consequences in the upcoming court sessions. The company accuses Poonia of privacy invasion, yet has left its own system vulnerable. According to a security researcher, the company's data was improperly stored in AWS servers. This left lakhs of users exposed to potential leaks. It is as yet unclear whether the potential vulnerability directly impacted anyone. Still, the company has fixed the issue. Earlier, WhiteHat Jr had fixed API vulnerabilities which let allowed access to user data including transaction details.

Further, Ponnia will soon be submitting evidences to court as to why he has been "defaming" WhiteHat Jr. "I'll, ofcourse, present my detailed defense to the Hon’ble Court. This will include material and docs that demonstrate the truth of the statements I have made,"states Poonia on Twitter. Poonia has been given three weeks to file his reply and WhiteHat Jr has been granted two weeks post reply to file their rejoinder. The case will be heard next on 6 January.