Businesses have the same defamation remedies as individuals, plus platform mechanisms that are often faster than any court.
Start with evidence and the platform
- Capture the content with visible URL, date and account handle, and archive the page, since posts are edited or deleted once a notice arrives.
- Report to the platform under its policies, and then in writing to its India grievance officer, who under the IT Rules, 2021 must acknowledge within 24 hours and resolve the complaint within seven days. Escalate to the Grievance Appellate Committee if refused.
- For fake reviews specifically, point to the platform's own policy on incentivised and fabricated reviews, and note the Bureau of Indian Standards framework on online consumer reviews.
- Cease and desist notice to the poster if identifiable.
The notice does more work than owners expect, provided it is specific. Quote the exact words complained of, identify the post by URL and date, say in one sentence why each statement is false and what the true position is, and demand removal and a retraction within a stated period. Send it by email and by registered post and keep the postal receipt. If the poster complies, the matter has ended cheaply. If he does not, the notice and the silence become annexures to the plaint and go a long way to showing the publication continued knowingly, which is what an interim injunction turns on. Our note on drafting a cease and desist notice in India sets out the structure and the mistakes that make one ignorable.
Court remedies
- Civil suit for defamation, seeking an interim injunction to take down and restrain further publication, and damages. The injunction is what you actually want.
- Criminal complaint under Section 356 BNS. Slower, and increasingly viewed critically where it looks like an attempt to silence criticism.
- Where the content also misuses your brand, trade mark infringement or passing off may give a cleaner and faster route than defamation.
That last point deserves weight. A defamation suit turns on proving falsity and damage, both of which take evidence and time. A trade mark claim turns on the mark, the register and the use, which are documents. If the offending page uses your name, logo or handle in a way suggesting it is you or authorised by you, the infringement claim is quicker to plead and produces the same practical relief. Our note on trade mark infringement in India covers what has to be shown. Where both are available, plead both.
Where the suit is filed, and what it costs
For a Bengaluru business, a defamation suit is ordinarily filed before the City Civil Court at Bengaluru, and before the Commercial Court where the claim falls within the Commercial Courts Act and meets the specified value. The relief that matters is the interim injunction under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, with an ex parte ad interim order available under Rule 3. Court fee on a damages claim is ad valorem, so a headline figure of a crore has a real price attached; most businesses plead a realistic figure and put the weight on the injunction.
Plead it properly or it fails at the threshold. Set out the exact words complained of, verbatim and in quotation marks, not a paraphrase. Show that they refer to you or your business, that they were published to third parties, that they are false as statements of fact, and what the loss has been, with figures: cancelled orders, a measurable drop in enquiries, a lost tender. Vague assertions of reputational harm are what courts refuse. The criminal route differs in kind: defamation under Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita is not ordinarily set in motion by an FIR but by a private complaint to the Magistrate, it is slow, it is personal to the individuals named, and the statutory exceptions covering truth for the public good and fair comment on a matter of public interest are wide.
Courts grant John Doe (Ashok Kumar) orders against unidentified defendants, and can direct the intermediary to disclose subscriber information and to take down the content. Under Section 79 of the IT Act read with the 2021 Rules, an intermediary loses safe harbour if it fails to act on a court order or a government notification, which is what gives the order teeth.
Before you sue, work through this
- Is the statement false? Truth is a complete defence in a civil action. A true but damaging review is not defamation.
- Is it a statement of fact or an opinion? Honest opinion on a matter of public interest is protected. "Their service was terrible" is opinion. "They took my money and never delivered" is fact.
- Is it identifiable to your business? A general complaint about an industry is not actionable by you.
- What is the actual reach? A post with forty views may be better answered than litigated, because a suit multiplies the audience.
- Do you want removal or damages? Removal points to an injunction and a platform notice. Damages point to a full civil suit and a longer road.
The commercial judgement
Before you litigate, consider whether you are about to amplify something few people saw. A measured public reply, plus a quiet takedown request, resolves most of these. Reserve litigation for sustained campaigns, competitor-driven review manipulation, and content that is demonstrably false and causing measurable loss.
What you cannot suppress
A genuine, honestly held negative opinion from a real customer is not defamation, and an attempt to remove it usually fails and looks worse. The line is between fact and comment: a false statement of fact is actionable, an unflattering opinion generally is not.
The same line runs through parody, memes and criticism by journalists or campaigners. Ridicule is not by itself actionable, and a court asked to gag comment on a matter of public interest will look hard at whether the claim is about reputation or about silencing a critic. Our note on when satire crosses the line into an offence works through where the boundary sits. Apply one test to each sentence you object to: is it capable of being proved true or false. If not, it is comment.
Building the record while you decide
Whether or not you litigate, build the file now; it is worth little assembled six months later. Archive each page through a service that timestamps the capture. Note the posting history: an account created days before the review and posting nothing else is evidence of a campaign, not a customer. Then pull your own order data for the same period, because the strongest single document in these cases is proof that the reviewer was never a customer at all.