New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday set aside an order that had restrained four journalists from publishing allegedly defamatory material about Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises, Live Law reported.
On September 6, Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh of the Rohini Courts had temporarily barred journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi, along with the websites paranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au, from publishing such reports.
District Judge Ashish Aggarwal quashed the order on an appeal filed by Nair, Dasgupta, Das and Joshi. Earlier in the day, another bench had reserved its verdict on a plea by Thakurta against the same directive, according to Bar and Bench.
Aggarwal noted that the articles in question had been in the public domain for a considerable time, and the trial court should have given the journalists an opportunity to be heard before directing removal. It may not be feasible to restore articles that have been removed if the court finds them not to be defamatory after hearing the journalists, Live Law quoted the judge as saying, calling the lower court’s order unsustainable.
Advocate Vrinda Grover, representing the journalists, argued that the restraint order was passed without notice. “Why no notice even of two days or three days? The court would have had the benefit of hearing us...The company which runs one of the largest media houses in the country says it ran into these articles just now?” Bar and Bench quoted her as saying.
The September 6 injunction had directed that allegedly defamatory material be expunged from articles and social media posts, or removed within five days if that was not possible. However, the trial court had clarified that it was not imposing a blanket ban on “fair, verified and substantiated” reporting.
The case stems from a defamation suit filed by Adani Enterprises, which claimed that journalists, activists and organizations had harmed its reputation and caused losses worth billions of dollars.
Citing the September 6 order, the Union government on Tuesday directed 12 news outlets and independent journalists to remove allegedly defamatory content about Adani Enterprises.
Those who received notices included news portals The Wire, Newslaundry and HW News, as well as journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ajit Anjum and Ravish Kumar, satirist Akash Banerjee and content creator Dhruv Rathee. The ministry ordered the removal of 138 YouTube links and 83 Instagram posts, covering investigative reports, satirical videos and incidental mentions of the Adani Group.
The Editors Guild of India on Wednesday expressed concern over both the September 6 court order and the government’s takedown directive, warning that such moves amounted to censorship and posed a threat to press freedom.