By Special Civil Judge

Copyright thehindu

A Delhi court on Thursday (September 18, 2025) granted an interim stay on an ex parte injunction that had restrained journalists and media portals from publishing or circulating “unverified, unsubstantiated and ex facie defamatory” reports about Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL).

District Judge Ashish Aggarwal of the Rohini court passed the order in an appeal filed by journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das, and Ayush Joshi, challenging the September 6 injunction issued by Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh.

The judge noted that the defendants should have been given an opportunity to be heard before such sweeping directions were issued.

“While articles and posts spanning a substantial period were questioned by the plaintiff through the suit, the court didn’t deem it fit to grant an opportunity of hearing to the defendants before passing the impugned order. In my opinion, the civil judge ought to have granted that opportunity before passing an order which had the impact of prima facie declaring articles are defamatory and even directing their removal,” the judge said.

The injunction had been granted in a defamation suit filed by AEL, which alleged that “coordinated defamatory” content was being published to tarnish its reputation and disrupt its global business operations. The September 6 order, however, clarified that it was not imposing a blanket restraint on “fair, verified and substantiated” reporting.

“…at this stage, instead of issuing a blanket order on restraining defendants No. 1 to 9 from fair, verified and substantiated reporting and from hosting, storing/circulating such articles/posts/URLs, it would suffice the interest of justice to restrain defendants No. 1 to 10 from publishing/distributing/circulating unverified, unsubstantiated and ex-facie defamatory reports about the plaintiff (Adani Enterprises Limited), allegedly tarnishing the reputation of the plaintiff, till the next date of hearing,” the September 6 order had said.

In their appeals, the journalists argued that the civil court had passed an overbroad restraining order without identifying which specific content was defamatory.

On Thursday (September 18, 2025), another Bench of the Delhi court reserved its verdict in a separate appeal preferred by journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who has also challenged the ex parte injunction.

On September 16, 2025, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), citing the September 6 order, had directed several news outlets and independent journalists to remove allegedly defamatory content about AEL. The notices covered 138 YouTube links and 83 Instagram posts, including investigative reports, satirical videos, and incidental mentions of the Adani Group.

Those who received takedown notices included Newslaundry, The Wire, HW News, Ravish Kumar, Ajit Anjum, Mr. Thakurta, Dhruv Rathee, and satirist Akash Banerjee. Copies of the notice were also sent to Meta and Google, placing responsibility on them as intermediaries to act under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.