Karnataka High Court allows Dr Cyriac Abby Phillips ‘The Liver Doc’ to access suspended X account

The Karnataka High Court today in an order issued had allowed the restoration of the X account of Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, who is better known as TheLiverDoc (@theliverdr) on social media. The high court in its order modified the trial court's order as reported by Bar and Bench.

The account was withheld after a civic court in Bengaluru last month passed an order on a plea filed by Himalaya Wellness Corporation which alleged that Dr Cyriac Abby Philips was making defamatory allegations against the products of the company.

The Karnataka High Court further stated that @TheLiverDr undertakes to hide offending tweets so far as it relates to plaintiff (Himalaya Wellness) and its products as reported by Bar and Bench.

Earlier a Bengaluru court passed an ex-parte injunction order to social media company X (formerly Twitter) to suspend the account of a doctor known for busting pseudoscience through his regular posts. The Bengaluru Civil Court passed the order in a suit filed by Himalaya Wellness Corporation, which alleged that Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist who goes by the name of The Liver Doc on X, made defamatory allegations against the company.

Philips hails from Kerala and is known for his social media posts and YouTube videos that claim to debunk pseudoscience and reject the prevalent notions about home remedies. For quite some time now, the hepatologist has been claiming to bust myths around alternative medicines and therapies like Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy. At a time when the government pushing for alternative medicines with a separate Ayush ministry in place, Philips argues these medicines and therapies lack scientific basis and can cause harm to patients.

*With inputs from agencies