A Delhi court quashed the order of four journalists to remove the alleged defamable comments against Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), saying that the effect of removing the articles by an interim unilateral order was ‘comprehensive’ and ‘it had an impact of the lawsuit without hearing’.
District Judge Ashish Aggarwal said that the civil court order is ‘not permanent’ and asked to pass a new order after hearing the appellants and AEL’s side.
Judge journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayasakant Das and Ayush Joshi were hearing a petition filed against the September 6 order of the Civil Court, in which he was stopped from publishing or broadcasting alleged untoward and defamable content against AEL.
Advocate Vrinda Grover appeared on her behalf.
In its order provided on September 18 and provided on Friday morning, the court said, “Based on the arguments presented before this court, I find that the matter is suitable for a stay on the September 6 order, as comprehensive instructions have been passed by the lower court without listening to the appellants.”
He said, “Until the appellants are heard, the court cannot guess that the appellants have made untreated, wrong and irresponsible statements.”
He said, “Until this process is completed and at least prima facie it is not determined that the articles are incorrect, infamous and untreated, till then these articles cannot be removed from the public domain, because doing so will cause a violation of Article 19 (1) (A) of the Constitution and it will be a serious violation of freedom of expression.”
Highlighting the earlier order, the court said, “Such instructions compel authors for contempt action without taking prior decisions whether their statements are defamatory or not, which does not give them an opportunity to defend themselves.”