Journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta challenges court order restricting content on Adani group

Senior advocate Trideep Pais, who appeared for Thakurta, told the court on Wednesday: “It’s literally like the plaintiff (AEL) wants to control the whole media. This order is completely overboard.”

Senior advocate Anurag Ahluwalia, who represented AEL in court, responded: “This is defamatory. We take strong objection to this.”

District Judge Rakesh Kumar Singh of Rohini Court said, “I will record this in the order. Please don’t use such words again.”

Judge Singh was hearing the matter as Judge Sunil Chaudhary, before whom it was listed, was on leave.

“I won’t repeat it, sir… they’re enjoying an interim order. This is going to create a problem for all websites. I’m an independent journalist. I also publish on other websites,” said Pais.

“An injunction is passed without referring to what is defamatory… There is no application of mind in this order, and there is absolutely no indication of what is defamatory… that’s the flaw of the impugned order,” he added.

Posting the matter for Thursday, the Judge then asked Pais, “I’m just trying to understand the urgency. It can be heard tomorrow morning… will your client’s business stop in a day? Is this a matter of life and death?”

“Pursuant to the judgment, all URLs that aren’t even mentioned in the plaint are being removed by the government,” said Pais, adding that in a few hours, all the links will be deleted.

“I’ve pursued this matter every day. I’ve drafted my appeal overnight. With a lot of difficulty, I’ve got a hearing today. I’ve been pursuing this for seven days straight,” he said.

Following the court order referred to by Pais, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) had issued takedown notices to several journalists.

The September 6 court order said: “… at this stage, instead of issuing a blanket order on restraining defendants No. 1 to 9 from fair, verified and substantiated reporting and from hosting, storing/ circulating such articles/ posts/ URLs, 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 (Adani Enterprises Limited) allegedly tarnishing the reputation of the plaintiff till the next date of hearing.”

“To the extent that the articles and posts are incorrect and unverified and prima facie defamatory, defendants No. 1 to 10 are also directed to expunge such defamatory material from their respective articles/social media posts/tweets and if the same is not feasible, remove the same within 5 days from date of this order,” Judge Anuj Kumar Singh of Rohini court had said while passing an ex-parte ad-interim injunction in favour of AEL.

Judge Anuj Kumar Singh was initially hearing a defamation case lodged by AEL alleging that “coordinated defamatory” content had been put on various websites to tarnish its reputation and disrupt its global business operations.

The defendants in the case are Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskanta Das, Ayush Joshi, Bob Brown Foundation, Dreamscape Network International Pvt Ltd, Getup Ltd, Domain Directors Pvt Ltd trading and unnamed persons.

The matter will now be taken up on Thursday at 10 am by Judge Sunil Chaudhary.