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Journalism of Courage
A DELHI Court Thursday said senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta was “not liable to follow ex parte gag order restraining him from reporting on Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL)”, till fresh orders are passed by the judge who will hear him Friday.
The court of Senior Civil Judge, North-West, is directed to hear the appellant, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, along with other defendants at 2 pm Friday, District Judge Sunil Chaudhary of Rohini courts said in an order dated September 24. “Needless to say that Trial Court while passing the fresh orders on the application… will consider the principles of law settled qua the grant of interim injunction. The appeal is disposed of accordingly and the appellant will not be liable to follow the order dated September 6 till fresh orders are passed by the court of Senior Civil Judge upon hearing him.”
Earlier last week, a different Judge in Rohini courts had set aside the same gag order dated September 6 against four other journalists — Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskanta Das and Ayush Joshi. The gag order, passed by Senior Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh, 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… from publishing/ distributing/ circulating unverified, unsubstantiated and ex-facie defamatory reports about the plaintiff (AEL) allegedly tarnishing the reputation of the plaintiff, till the next date of hearing.”
The gag order also said: “The plaintiff (AEL) is given opportunity to apply to intermediaries/ agencies concerned with details of the URLs/ posts/ hyperlinks/ articles on the basis of this order and intermediaries/ agencies concerned are directed to take down/ remove the alleged defamatory articles/ posts/ URLs whereby the prime facie defamatory material is published against the plaintiff within 36 hours, however, they shall preserve the contents and record till further orders.”
Following this order, passed after AEL filed a defamation suit against the I&B Ministry had issued takedown notices to several journalists.
Aggrieved by this, the journalists moved the court. Their main grievances were that they weren’t heard when this order was passed and that the order was “broad” and gave a lot of power to AEL. Guha, represented by senior advocate Trideep Pais and advocate Apar Gupta, argued that what was defamatory in the content was never pointed out in the order.
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