Delhi Court Reserves Order On Journalist's Appeal Against Gag Order Restricting Reports On Adani Group

A Delhi Court on Thursday reserved its verdict in the appeal preferred by Journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta challenging an ex-parte order passed by the lower court on September 06, restraining him from publishing stories about the Adani Group.

District Judge Sunil Chaudhary of Rohini Courts reserved the order after hearing both sides. During the hearing, the judge had orally inquired if Guha had any material to corroborate his claims in the allegedly defamatory articles.

"He has material. He is a responsible journalist. If he was called upon to explain, he would have done. He would have explained himself," Senior Advocate Trideep Pais appearing for Guha told the Court.

Guha has primarily argued that (i) the impugned order does not contain reasons for granting "overboard relief" of ex-parte injunction, (ii) it does not point which part is defamatory, and (iii) it injuncts even further material inasmuch as it prohibits publication of any material not only against plaintiff (Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL)) but its group companies who are not even parties.

Guha was represented by Senior Advocate Trideep Pais and Advocate Apar Gupta.

Senior Advocates Anurag Ahluwalia, Jagdeep Sharma and Advocate Vijay Aggarwal representing Adani Enterprises argued that there have been persistent defamatory articles against the company, without any basis or material to support the same. It also submitted that Guha himself is under NIA scanner for alleged terror funding.

A similar appeal challenging the same order filed by journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi is also listed today.

Submissions for Journalist

Pais submitted that the civil judge gave no finding but simply stated there is defamatory material and prima facie case are made out. "The test for defamation is whether my words are defamatory. Whether he has found guilty or not is not the test. (Impugned) Order extracts submissions. It doesn't give a finding. No reasoning whatsoever even for prima facie case."

He argued that there was "absolutely no urgency" for AEL to carry out the suit last minute and to obtain an ex parte ad interim injunction. "The articles are of 2017 and some are one year old…. They are not recent. It can't be that you have a one year six month old and even 2017 article and you plead…"

Instead, the urgency now arisen, he argued, was that order is passed by central government asking intermediaries to remove all articles "not even subject matter of the suit".

"They (plaintiff) can give any number of links and they will have to be taken down. That is the order of the court. Who will determine that what is defamatory is left to the plaintiff...Based on this order the plaintiff can have anything removed from the internet and the intermediaries have been directed to take down...There is a huge website. It has 10-30 articles. What out of that is defamatory is left for the plaintiff to write to intermediary to take down. It is literally putting plaintiff in the shoes of a judge in a defamation case," Pais submitted.

He further argued it is not plaintiff's case that it is espousing cause of other group of companies and yet, the order grants reliefs for even those companies who are not even parties. "The order prohibits publication of any material not only against plaintiff but its group companies who are not even parties. What is important is all companies mentioned are not plaintiff. They are separate."

Submissions for Adani Enterprises

The Court at the outset told the counsel that defamation is made out only when the Court declares so. "You are seeking a declaration that these articles are defamatory. If court declares material is defamatory only then injunction will be passed. If relief not provided to you then how injunction can be granted. Unless it is declared that you have reputation and these articles infringe your reputation, only after that relief can be granted."

Ahulwalia at this juncture submitted that reliance is on the Supreme Court judgment, where clean chit was given to the plaintiff in the Hindenburg case.

Court however asked Ahluwalia to make out his case in respect of material published by Guha.

He then referred to an article titled “What Elon Musk is to US, Adani is to Modi" which goes on to state that "Modi has travelled world to promote Adani, the PM has hurt country's image…”

"These are self explanatory. This is just tip of iceberg. Far more atrocious language in next article. I can't fathom the idea how can they use such language...It creates an impression that I am not a professional company at all. Which rules have I tweaked? At the end of the day, I have to build reputation in market," Ahulwalia submitted.

He further submitted that while allegations of 'scam' have been levelled against the company, no such material to support the allegation has been made public, despite their having the platform to do so.

"Time after again there has been article to tarnish my reputation. Once in a blue moon I can understand. If they would have been fair journalist, they would have said 'this is the evidence, we have material and we are publishing it'. You are scheming while sitting in room and making all sorts of stories. Should I wait for shares (of the company) to go down? Why are you doing so, sir should ask them," Ahulwalia continued.

Background and About Impugned Order

The journalists have challenged an order passed by Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh of Rohini Courts. The appeals have been filed before the district court.

Vide the impugned order, the judge had prima facie observed that the reports published by the journalists about the Adani Group were defamatory and unverified.

The judge had passed the ex-parte ad-interim injunction in favour of Adani Enterprises Limited against the journalists and three websites- pranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au.

The Court had said that there was a prima facie case in favour of the Adani Group and that the balance of convenience lies in its favour, considering that continual forwarding or publishing or re-tweeting and trolling against it would further tarnish its image in public perception and may result in media trial.

The suit alleged that the defendants were running “agenda driven” websites and were repeatedly publishing baseless and defamatory content against the Adani Group, its Founder and Chairman.

It was averred that apart from the websites in question, defamatory material was shared widely on Social Medial platforms, other websites and several John Doe persons were publishing the same across various media and websites.

It was contended that Adani Enterprises was being maliciously and deliberately attacked its operations were hampered globally, droving away their investors, wiping off massive amount of funds of investors and created panic in the market.

Vide the impugned order, the Court had directed the journalists to expunge the defamatory material against Adani Group from their respective articles or social media posts or tweets and if the same is not feasible, remove the same within 5 days.

“Also, attention of defendants are drawn to Rule 3 of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), Rules 2021 requiring due diligence by the intermediary in hosting/storing/publishing such material. Specifically, attention of the defendants is also drawn to Rule 3(1)(d) of the aforesaid IT Rules, it is also incumbent upon the intermediary to remove / disable access to such content within 36 hours from receipt of such order of the Court or on being notified by the Appropriate Government or its agency,” the Court had ordered.  

Appearances:

Sr. Adv. Trideep Pais, Apar Gupta, Indumugi C, Naman Kumar, Saloni Ambastha and Sakshi Jain, appeared for Guha.

Sr. Adv. Anurag Ahluwalia, Sr. Adv. Jagdeep Sharma, along with Advocates Vijay Aggarwal, Sunil Kr. Mittal, Nitin Ahlawat, Rajiv Tehlan, Aarti Vohra, Nagesh Behl, Ayush Jindal, Naman Joshi, Rohit, Vineet Sidhu, Verdaan Jain, Muskan Aggarwal, Rajat Jain, Vimal Khurana, Kartikay Sharma, Shreya, Ashu Goyal, Mayank Sharma and Shekhar Pathak appeared for Adani Enterprises.