Delhi Court Restrains Journalists, Websites From Publishing 'Defamatory', 'Unverified' Reports On Adani Group
A Delhi Court on Saturday temporarily restrained various journalists and two websites from publishing prima facie defamatory and unverified reports about the Adani Group.
Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh of Rohini Courts passed the ex-parte ad-interim injunction in favour of Adani Enterprises Limited against the journalists and the websites.
The journalists are: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi. The websites are pranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au.
The judge 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.
“….it would suffice the interest of justice to restrain defendants no. 1 to 10 from publishing/distributing/circulating unverified, unsubstantiated and ex-facie defamatory reports about the plaintiff allegedly tarnishing the reputation of the plaintiff till the next date of hearing,” the judge said.
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.
Issuing summons in the suit, the Court said is that if the reliefs sought by Adani Enterprises in the application is denied, the company shall suffer further loss of reputation which will be incalculable and may result in irreparable injury.
“Further, considering that the plaintiff has expressed his grievance of alleged defamatory articles which are of recent origin and still mushrooming, at this stage, there is no material to opine that the plaintiff has acquiesced to the circulation of the alleged defamatory articles and posts,” the judge said.
The Court directed the defendants 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 said.
Senior Advocate Jagdeep Sharma, along with Advocates Naman Joshi, Vijay Aggarwal, Guneet Sidhu, Verdaan Jain, Muskan Aggarwal and Deepak Aggarwal appeared for Adani Enterprises.