Delhi High Court To Hear On Thursday Pleas By Newslaundry, Ravish Kumar Challenging Centre's Order To Remove Content Against Adani Group

The Delhi High Court on Monday (September 22) adjourned to Thursday (September 25) pleas by digital news platform Newslaundry and journalist Ravish Kumar challenging Centre's direction asking digital news publishers to take down multiple reports and videos concerning the Adani Group of Companies. 

Senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal appearing for one of the petitioners submitted before Justice Sachin Datta that the plea before high court was not on merits, and the plea on merits is coming up before the trial court tomorrow against an interim order.

"This present petition is only on power of the government to enforce an order passed inter-parte between two private people where I am not...," Kirpal said. 

Meanwhile senior advocate Trideep Pais submitted that the appeal came up before the trial court judge who said that the "appeal will be listed at 10am tomorrow before the learned Principal District Judge to be marked to the judge who had already vacated the order on behalf of the others". 

"The first judge has said that my appeal and Newslaundry's appeal will be listed at 2pm tomorrow," he said. 

For context, today District judge Sunil Chaudhary of Delhi's Rohini Court has transferred the appeals filed by journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Newslaundry challenging the ex-parte gag order restraining reporting against Adani, to the same judge who had quashed that order qua four other journalists.

Notably, District Judge Ashish Aggarwal of the Rohini Courts had on September 18 quashed an ex-parte order gag passed by the lower court on September 06, restraining 'defamatory' publications about the Adani Group on appeals preferred by four journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi.

Kirpal thereafter said that Newslaundry falls under the John Doe defendant and those who were named have succeeded in the appeal. 

The high court thereafter listed the two petitions on Thursday. 

In its petition, Newslaundry has challenged the communication issued by the Ministry on September 16 to Newslaundry, as well as many other independent journalists and content creators such as Dhruv Rathee, Ravish Kumar, Abhisar Sarma, Deshbhakt (Akash Banerjee), Paranjoy Guha Thakurta etc.

The Ministry asked them to "take appropriate action" to comply with an ex-parte order passed by a Delhi Civil Court on September 16 directing the removal of defamatory and unverified content published against Gautam Adani and the Adani group of companies.

Newslaundry contended that they were not parties in the civil suit, and the order passed by the Court did not refer to any content published by them. They also stated that they got information about the Court's order only through the communication issued by the MIB on September 16.

They contended that the MIB's directive was an "administrative overreach" and "inherently arbitrary exercise of executive power" by directing action on the basis of an order passed in a civil dispute between private parties.

"The Impugned Order has no legal, statutory and/or constitutional basis in the first place. The government cannot seek compliance with court orders in complete violation of the principles of separation of powers," the petitioner stated.

The Delhi Civil Court had passed the order in a civil defamation suit filed by Adani group against certain specific journalists. The Court's order also covered "John Doe" defendants who published similar content. An appellate Court had set aside the lower Court's ex-parte order as regards four journalists.

In his petition, Kumar has challenged the same order saying that it represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional exercise of executive power that strikes at the very foundation of democratic governance, press freedom and the separation of powers doctrine enshrined in the Constitution of India.

He has said though he was not a defendant in the defamation suit in which the impugned order was passed, but he has been directly and adversely affected by Centre's directive as his YouTube videos have been targeted for takedown.

As per the plea, the chilling effect of such governmental overreach extends beyond individual content creators to the entire ecosystem of independent journalism and public discourse in the country.

The petition seeks a declaration that prior restraint on journalistic content requires strict constitutional compliance with Article 19(2) safeguards and that the same has been violated by the Central Government.

It further seeks a direction on the Centre to refrain from issuing similar orders without constitutional and statutory compliance.

A further direction is sought on the Union Government to establish clear guidelines for any content-related administrative action, establishing safeguards against executive overreach in content regulation while protecting journalists and content creators.

Case title:  RAVISH KUMAR V/s UNION OF INDIA W.P.(C)-14643/2025

NEWSLAUNDRY MEDIA PVT LTD V/s UNION OF INDIA W.P.(C)-14562/2025