A screenshot of a Hindi news article attributed to Congress leader Kapil Sibal is widely circulating on social media platforms, claiming that during the 2019 general elections, Kapil Sibal has filed a petition in a London court requesting not to extradite Vijay Mallya to India right now as it would impact the elections. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: During 2019 general elections, Kapil Sibal has filed a petition in a London court requesting not to extradite Vijay Mallya to India right now as it would impact the elections.
Fact: We did not find any media reports indicating that Kapil Sibal filed a petition in a London court during the 2019 general elections, requesting not to extradite Vijay Mallya to India, stating that it would impact the elections. This viral post is extracted from a news report published by a satirical website named Faking News in February 2019. The disclaimer on this website reads, “Content of this website is a work of fiction. Readers are advised not to confuse the ‘news reports’ of Faking News as being genuine and true.” Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet. We did not find any media reports indicating that Kapil Sibal filed a petition in a London court during the 2019 general elections, requesting not to extradite Vijay Mallya to India, stating that it would impact the elections. During this search, we found a fact-check article published by India Today in February 2019. According to this report, this post was extracted from a report published on the website fakingnews.com on 06 February 2019, which explicitly states that it is a satire website.
Faking News is an Indian satirical news website that publishes fake news reports. The screenshot circulating on social media was taken from the same website and later was misrepresented with a misleading caption. Moreover, the disclaimer on the website reads, “Content of this website is a work of fiction. Readers are advised not to confuse the ‘news reports’ of Faking News as being genuine and true.” From this information, it is evident that a misleading screenshot from a satirical website is being circulated on social media as an authentic news story.
To sum it up, a news report from a satirical website published in February 2019 is falsely attributed to Kapil Sibal.
