The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Tuesday ordered 12 news outlets and independent journalists to take down allegedly defamatory content about industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises, citing a Delhi court order from September 6.
According to various reports, among those who got notices to remove such content were news portals Newslaundry, The Wire and HW News, journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ajit Anjum and Ravish Kumar, satirist Akash Banerjee, and content creator Dhruv Rathee.
The ministry ordered 138 YouTube links and 83 Instagram posts to be removed. These included not just investigative reports, but also satirical videos and incidental mentions of the Adani Group.
Copies of the notice were also sent to Meta and Google, which own Instagram and YouTube.
The notice issued by the ministry cites the Delhi court order that temporarily restrained five journalists and three websites from publishing allegedly defamatory material about Adani Enterprises.
The journalists named in the order were Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi. The websites included in the order were paranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter) senior journalist Guha wrote, “Dear friends and well-wishers, I thank all of you for your support and your solidarity. I would under normal circumstances have been present in the Rohini Courts in north Delhi this afternoon during our appeal against an ex-parte ad-interim order initiated by Adani Enterprises Limited, but regretfully I will not be present in court on the occasion. Reason: I will have to catch a train from New Delhi to Kota in Rajasthan to appear before a villlage court (ग्राम न्यालय) in District Baran, Rajasthan, tomorrow (Thursday 18 September) morning in a different defamation case instituted by Adani Power Limited. The court is located 100 kilometres from Kota.”
“This will be my fifth visit to the court. Three of us, Prabir Purkayastha, Abir Dasgupta and I, are travelling together. You may be aware in the Adani Enterprises Limited versus Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and others case, the Government of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcast has involved a host of journalists and media organisations such as Ravish Kumar, Ajit Anjum, Aakash Banerjee (Deshbhakt), Dhruv Rathee, The Wire, NewsLaundry, HW News, New Delhi Post, Ulta Chasma and others by directing them to take down Adani related context from their social media handles. The direction has gone to social media platforms like YouTube and X (Twitter). Thanks again for your support (http://paranjoy.in/donate), your good wishes and solidarity. Have a good day. Lots of love. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.”
Meanwhile, journalist Abhishar Sharma said that the Assam government has filed cases against him after the Adani defamation case.
According to reports, barring Guha Thakurta, none of the others who got the ministry’s notice on Tuesday were party to the proceedings before the Delhi court.
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. 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 parte order is one that is passed without hearing the other side in a legal dispute.
The court had 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.
