Delhi court restrains 5 journalists, 3 websites from publishing ‘defamatory’ reports about Adani

A Delhi court on Saturday temporarily restrained five journalists and three websites from publishing allegedly defamatory material about industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises, Live Law reported.

The journalists are Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi, and the websites are paranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au.

Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh of the Rohini Courts passed the injunction in favour of Adani Enterprises, directing the defendants to expunge the material from their articles and social media posts.

If expunging the content was not feasible, they must remove it within five days, the order said.

However, the court clarified that it was not issuing a blanket order restraining the defendants from “fair, verified and substantiated” reporting and from hosting, storing or circulating such articles, posts or webpage links, PTI reported.

The matter pertained to a defamation suit filed by Adani Enterprises alleging that journalists, activists and organisations had damaged the company’s reputation and cost its stakeholders billions of dollars, Bar and Bench reported.

Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group.

As per the court order, Adani Enterprises’ counsel argued that the journalists and activists had “aligned with anti-India interests” and were continuously targeting the firm’s infrastructure and energy projects with “ulterior motives”.

Adani Enterprises told the court that its operations in Australia “aimed at securing vital resources for India” were “strained and...

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