The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea filed by journalist Ravi Nair challenging a summons issued to him by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch in connection with an article he co-authored on the Adani Group [Ravi Nair vs. Union of India].
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta asked Nair to approach the Gujarat High Court after briefly hearing his counsel, Senior Advocate Anand Grover.
The plea was ultimately dismissed as withdrawn.
The case arises from a summons issued to Nair by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch for a preliminary inquiry into a report he co-authored for The Washington Post titled “India’s $3.9 billion plan to help Modi’s mogul ally after US charges.”
The article claimed that internal documents showed Indian officials had drafted and pushed through a proposal to steer roughly $3.9 billion in investments to businesses of billionaire Gautam Adani from the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), a State-owned insurer.
According to the report, the proposal involved investing billions in corporate bonds issued by Adani Group companies and increasing LIC’s equity stakes in several subsidiaries. The article suggested that the plan was intended to signal confidence in the conglomerate at a time when it was facing financial pressures and legal scrutiny abroad.
The report also referred to criminal charges filed by US authorities against Adani in 2024, as well as earlier allegations made by the now-defunct short-seller Hindenburg Research, accusing the group of stock manipulation and financial irregularities. The Adani Group has denied these allegations.
Following the publication of the report, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch issued a summons to Nair as part of a preliminary inquiry.
Nair subsequently moved the Supreme Court under Article 32, challenging the summons.
Before the top court, Grover, appearing for Nair, argued that he was being repeatedly targeted through multiple complaints filed by the same corporate group over his reporting.
“He’s being harassed consistently. The same company files a complaint and the police issues notice. They have no jurisdiction. They have lodged three cases against him because he’s writing something. It’s freedom of speech,” Grover submitted.
Grover also told the Court that Nair was based in Delhi and feared arrest if he appeared before the Gujarat authorities.
“He’s in Delhi, he can’t go there (to Gujarat). At least no coercive action. If I go there, they will arrest me,” Grover said, urging the Court to grant protection.
The Court, however, was not inclined to entertain the petition under Article 32 and asked Nair to seek relief before the jurisdictional High Court.
Pertinently, Nair was recently convicted by a Gujarat court in a separate criminal defamation case filed by the Adani Group.
In that case, the court found that a series of tweets and online articles published by Nair accusing the Adani Group of cronyism, corruption and unethical practices crossed the line from criticism into criminal defamation.
The court held that the allegations were presented as statements of fact without verification and were capable of harming the company’s reputation.
Nair was sentenced to one year of simple imprisonment and fined ₹5,000 in that case.