Why Calcutta, asks a defiant Sabeer Bhatia after high court restrains YouTube video on Modi-Adani

• A documentary produced and uploaded by Sabeer Bhatia on 9 October on the relationship between the Modi government and the Adani Group was widely shared on social media

• Mumbai police commissioner ‘requested’ politician Raj Thackeray to take down the video he had shared on social media. No defamation case filed against Thackeray though

• Calcutta High Court on 26 October issued an injunction banning circulation of the video till 31 January 2027

After Mumbai’s police commissioner ‘requested’ Raj Thackeray to take down the video on the relationship between the Modi government and the Adani Group, and it was blocked in India following a government demand, the Calcutta High Court has now restrained its circulation until 31 January 2027.

“Sabeer Bhatia’s documentary received such an overwhelming response that it was only natural for those in power to grow anxious, fearing that their secrets might be exposed. The intensity of this fear must have been significant, as I received a request, conveyed through the Mumbai police commissioner, to take it down,” posted Raj Thackeray on Sunday, 25 October. He claimed that the video posted by him had received 4.8 million views on Twitter alone.

On Monday, 26 October, justice Aryak Dutt of the Calcutta High Court passed an ad-interim injunction against the video produced and uploaded by entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia. The court observed that the video contained serious factual imputations against the Adani Group, including allegations of complicity in narcotics smuggling linked to terror funding and procuring police violence and false prosecution against a farmer. The HC noted that no material placed before it showed any finding by an authority to support these allegations.

The court restrained the respondents from publishing, republishing, uploading, sharing or otherwise disseminating the video, its clips, excerpts, shortened versions or materially identical reproductions. “The impugned video is not a news report or an account of proceedings. It is a dramatised narrative, whose title expressly imputes theft, and whose narration and visuals are represented as factual,” the court observed.

“The restraint is confined to one identified video, its clips and its materially identical reproductions,” the court clarified, adding that constructive criticism and truthful reporting supported by evidence would not be barred. The court directed the respondents to remove the video and its allegedly defamatory reproductions from accounts, channels and pages owned or controlled by them.

The suit filed by Adani Enterprises Limited against Sabeer Bhatia and other unidentified persons claimed that the 36-minute video was uploaded on 9 October 2026 and was also posted on Bhatia's X account. The company claimed that by the same day, the video had received 46,134 views on YouTube and around 40,000 views on X. The company contended that the statements in the video were false and that it had received enquiries from investors and others following its publication. It argued that its right to reputation was an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution.

Adani Enterprises submitted that access to the original YouTube upload had subsequently been disabled in India following a government complaint.

Meanwhile Sabeer Bhatia remains defiant. In a series of posts on X after the Calcutta High Court’s injunction, he said the following:

• I wonder why Adani chose Kolkata as the place to file the lawsuit? Thoughts welcome

• Adani is suing me for Rs 50 crore, apparently valuing the damage to his reputation at that amount. I contend that wealth acquired through

  alleged wrongdoing does not confer credibility or reputation. My valuation of that reputation? Rupee Zero. And if the reputational damage is zero, the compensation should be zero. Rs 50 crore demanded. Re 0 deserved.

• The purpose of my documentary is not merely to expose corruption at the highest levels of government. It is to expose a fundamentally broken system-one without effective checks and balances, where power is concentrated at the very top, preventing the equitable distribution of wealth, resources and opportunity. The problem isn’t just corrupt individuals. It’s a system that enables corruption.

• As long as the “great leader” was the subject of jokes and ridicule, there was no backlash. But the moment questions were raised about his sources of funding, all hell broke loose. Makes you wonder-what exactly struck a nerve?