Delhi Court quashes Adani gag order, cites lack of hearing for journalists

• Rohini Court quashed a 6 September ex-parte gag order that had restrained critical publications about the Adani Group.

• Judge Ashish Aggarwal ruled the lower court erred by not hearing journalists before directing takedowns.

• He noted the articles had been in the public domain for months, making their sudden removal unjustified.

• Journalists’ counsel Vrinda Grover argued the order was a sweeping prior restraint undermining press freedom.

• Adani’s counsel claimed the publications were part of a malicious campaign and justified the injunction.

A Delhi court on Thursday, 18 September, set aside an ex-parte injunction that had restrained the publication of allegedly defamatory content about the Adani Group, ruling that the lower court erred in passing the order without hearing the journalists concerned.

District judge Ashish Aggarwal of the Rohini courts delivered the ruling while hearing an appeal filed by journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi.

The ex-parte order, passed by a civil judge on 6 September, had directed the takedown of several articles and posts critical of the Adani Group. Judge Aggarwal, however, observed that since the publications had been in the public domain for months, the trial court should have granted the journalists an opportunity to be heard before granting such sweeping relief.

“The effect would be that if subsequently the court were to find the articles not defamatory, it would not be feasible to restore them once removed,” the judge noted, as quoted by LiveLaw. He concluded that the order was unsustainable and therefore quashed it, without commenting on the merits of the underlying defamation suit.

Senior advocate Vrinda Grover, representing the journalists, argued that most of the impugned publications dated back to June 2024 and the articles had already been widely circulated.

She said there was no urgency warranting an extraordinary interim order, and criticised the civil court’s blanket injunction as a ‘John Doe’ order that effectively muzzled the press.

Grover also questioned how the lower court had deemed the articles “unverified” when some relied on official documents, including statements by the Kenyan government and a Swiss judgement. She stressed that such prior restraint undermined freedom of speech and the role of journalists as agents of the press.

Counsel for the Adani Group, advocate Vijay Aggarwal, countered that the publications formed part of a coordinated campaign to malign the company, pointing to recent podcasts and social media activity.

He claimed that the journalists were engaging in “malicious targeting” and argued that every retweet or like amounted to republication. He also noted that the journalists could have sought relief from the trial court under Order 39 Rule 4 of the Civil Procedure Code to vacate the injunction.

Significantly, another bench of the same court has reserved its verdict on a similar plea filed by senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta against the same gag order.

The appeal was argued by advocates Vrinda Grover, Nakul Gandhi, Soutik Banerjee and Devika Tulsiani on behalf of the four journalists.

In the past, readers may recall, a similar plea for a media gag on the Adani-Hindenburg reports was refused by the Supreme Court.