The Principal District and Sessions Judge of the Rohini Court said on Tuesday that journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and digital news platform Newslaundry's appeal against a gag order on reporting on Adani will be heard by district judge Sunil Chaudhary, not judge Ashish Aggarwal, who had earlier set aside the order partially.
Principal District and Sessions Judge Gurvinder Pal Singh said the cases will be heard on September 24 by judge Chaudhary.
Notably, Judge Chaudhary had on Monday said that it would be appropriate if the cases were heard by Judge Aggarwal since the latter had already dealt with and passed orders in the case.
The matters were listed before the Principal District and Sessions Judge today, following Judge Chaudhary's decision to transfer the case.
However, advocate Vijay Aggarwal appeared for Adani Enterprises Limited today and opposed the transfer.
Subsequently, counsel appearing for Newslaundry and Thakurta also said they have no objection to the case being heard by Judge Chaudhary.
"The extensive arguments having been heard by District Judge 4 (Judge Chaudhary), it would be expedient in he interest of justice that the adjudication of the appeal may be appropriately done as per law by the court of DJ to which the case has been assigned. Accordingly, the case be sent to District Judge 4," the Court ordered in Thakurta's case.
In Newslaundry's appeal, the Court said,
"It is appellant's submission that he has full faith in the appellate court to which appeal was assigned and he has no problem if the case is heard and decided by the appellate court of DJ 4... File of the case be sent back to DJ 4 to hear and adjudicate the matter in accordance with law. Parties to appear before the DJ 4 on September 24."
The gag order in the matter was passed on September 6 by senior civil judge Anuj Kumar Singh of the Rohini Court who ordered removal of the defamatory content against AEL and also asked the journalists to refrain from publishing unverified and defamatory information about the company.
Apart from the five named journalists, injunction was also issued against John Doe defendants (unknown defendants).
This prompted Newslaundry, Thakurta and other journalists to appeal before the district court against the civil court order.
The appeal filed by journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi against the order was allowed by judge Ashish Aggarwal on September 18.
Judge Aggarwal lifted the stay with respect to those journalists.
However, Newslaundry and Thakurta's plea came up for hearing before a district judge Chaudhary on Monday. After noting judge Aggarwal's previous order, judge Chaudhary deemed it appropriate that judge Aggarwal should hear these cases.
Therefore, the matter came up before Principal District and Sessions Judge today for formal assignment of the case to judge Aggarwal.
However, the Principal District and Sessions Judge today decided that the appeals can be heard by judge Chaudhar and remanded the matter back to him.
The case itself stemmed from a defamation suit filed before the civil judge by Adani Enterprises alleging that certain journalists, activists and organizations damaged its reputation and cost its stakeholders billions of dollars by causing massive loss to its image, brand equity and credibility of India’s brand as a country.
Adani Enterprises argued that these journalists and activists have “aligned with anti-India interests and have been continuously targeting Adani Enterprises’ infrastructure and energy projects which are critical to India’s infrastructure and energy security and have disrupted these projects with ulterior motives”.
AEL referred to the articles published on paranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au and said that these websites have repeatedly published defamatory content against the company, the Adani Group, as well as its founder and chairman Gautam Adani.
After considering the case, the civil court ruled that AEL had made a prima facie case for grant of interim injunction.
This led to the appeals before the district court.
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