‘Newslaundry’, Ravish Kumar and Adani agree to maintain status quo in ‘defamatory’ articles case

Journalist Ravish Kumar and digital news outlet Newslaundry on Friday arrived at an agreement with Adani Enterprises to maintain status quo in a case about allegedly defamatory content about the company, Bar and Bench reported.

As per the agreement, Newslaundry and Kumar will not have to take down any existing articles, but any material that has been taken down after a civil court order cannot be uploaded again.

The interim arrangement will stay in place until a Delhi court makes a final ruling on Adani Enterprise’s request for an injunction to remove all allegedly defamatory content, the High Court said.

Following this agreement, the High Court on Friday disposed of two writ petitions filed by Newslaundry and Kumar, which had challenged the government’s directive to take down content, Live Law reported.

The matter pertains 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. Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group.

Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh of the Rohini Courts had on September 6 passed an ex parte injunction in favour of the company, 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.

An ex...

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