Mumbai, Aug. 5 -- The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted interim relief to Union road minister Nitin Gadkari in a defamation suit, directing social media platforms to remove allegedly defamatory and deepfake content linking him and his family to the Centre's E20 ethanol-blending programme.

A single judge bench of Justice Arif Doctor observed that the content flagged by Gadkari was "vile and abusive" and said such material should not be present on public platforms.

"The material which plaintiff (Nitin Gadkari) seeks to pull down, I can only say that the same is absolutely vile and abusive. Such material should have no place on a public platform, which is accessible to everyone including young.. Meta and Google have appeared and they ...