Delhi court to decide maintainability of Adani defamation suit before ruling on injunction against journalists

A Delhi court on Wednesday rejected Adani Enterprises Limited’s request to hear its interim injunction application to stop five journalists from publishing allegedly defamatory content against the company [Adani Enterprises Ltd v Paranjoy Guhar Thakurta & Ors]. 

Instead, Senior Civil Judge Mayank Mittal of the Rohini Courts said he will first decide the maintainability of the defamation suit filed by Adani Enterprises by hearing the journalists’ applications against it.

The journalists have claimed that the suit is not maintainable since the Rohini court lacks territorial jurisdiction to entertain the case. 

“From the consideration of submissions advanced on behalf of the parties, the Court is of the considered opinion that as issue of jurisdiction of the Court has been raised even before addressing arguments on application under Order 39 Rule 1 & 2 Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), the Court should hear the submissions on application under Order 7 Rule 10 and Rule 11 (a) and (d) CPC first,” the Court said. 

Therefore, the Court ordered the journalists to supply a copy of their application to Adani Enterprises’ lawyer.

Judge Mittal has now listed the case for arguments on December 3. 

Notably, the Court had earlier passed an ex parte interim order restraining journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi from publishing stories against Adani. 

The journalists challenged the order before the District Judge and the directions were lifted. The District Judge noted that the then Senior Civil Judge had passed the ex-parte orders without hearing the journalists. The matter was then sent back to the Senior Civil Judge for fresh adjudication. 

When the matter was taken up today, the counsel appearing for Thakurta stated that he has moved an application under Order 7 Rule 10 and 11 of CPC for the rejection of the defamation case since the Court does not have the territorial jurisdiction to hear the matter. 

The counsel stressed that the Court should hear Thakurta’s application first before ruling on the interim injunction application. 

The submission was opposed by Adani Enterprises’ counsel who stated that the matter is listed today for arguments on the interim relief application and that at time of arguing his case, he will explain the Court’s jurisdiction as well as valuation. 

The counsel added that the application filed by the journalist was a tactic to delay the proceedings. 

After considering the arguments, the Court ruled that it will first hear the applications by journalists against the maintainability of the suit. 

Senior Advocate Jagdeep Sharma along with advocates Vijay Aggarwal, Naman Joshi, Muskan Aggarwal, Rajat Jain and Verdaan Jain appeared for Adani Enterprises Limited. 

Senior Advocate Trideep Pais along with advocates Apar Gupta, Indumugi C, Naman Kumar, Avanti Deshpande, Sakshi Jain and Saloni Ambastha represented Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. 

Advocates Vrinda Grover, Nakul Gandhi, Mujeeb, Tanish Gupta, Siddhi Sahoo and Sautik Banerjee appeared for journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi. 

[Read Order]