Delhi court declines urgent hearing on Adani gag order, journalists decry takedown notices

A Delhi court on Wednesday (September 17, 2025) declined to urgently hear journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s appeal against an injunction restraining him from publishing allegedly defamatory content about Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL).

District Judge Rakesh Kumar Singh of the Rohini court said the matter, arising from a September 6 injunction, would be taken up on September 18. “It will be heard tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” he said.

“What if your client doesn’t publish for two days? Is it a matter of life and death?” the court added, dismissing the plea for urgent hearing.

Senior advocate Trideep Pais, appearing for Mr. Thakurta, argued that the injunction was over-broad, and issued without hearing Mr. Thakurta. “The court has not shown what material is false or defamatory. It is the duty of the plaintiff to identify what is defamatory, and for the court to rule on it,” Mr. Pais submitted.

Senior advocate Anurag Ahluwalia, representing AEL, opposed the request for an urgent hearing, saying there was no exceptional circumstance to depart from the regular schedule.

Mr. Thakurta, along with journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das, and Ayush Joshi, have challenged the September 6 ex parte interim injunction in favour of AEL, passed without impleading the defendants.

Special Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh restrained nine journalists, activists, and entities from publishing or circulating “unverified, unsubstantiated and ex facie defamatory” reports about AEL, and directed the removal of such content within five days. The order also allowed the company to identify additional online material it considered defamatory, which intermediaries and platforms were required to take down within 36 hours.

The injunction was passed in a defamation suit filed by AEL, which alleged that “coordinated defamatory” content had been published to tarnish its reputation and disrupt its global business operations. The court clarified, however, that it was not issuing 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 said.

In their appeals, the journalists have contended that the court passed an over-broad and all-encompassing restraining order without identifying which specific content was defamatory.

On Tuesday (September 16, 2025), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), citing the September 6 order, 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.

‘No notice given’

Several journalists and content creators who received takedown notices criticised the order as arbitrary and excessive. Journalist Deepak Sharma wrote on X that the Rohini court had directed the removal of 11 of his videos without issuing any notice. He pointed out that the order, passed on September 6, was communicated only on September 16, after the September 9 deadline to respond had already lapsed. “Can a court, without summoning you, without giving notice, without hearing you, send you a decision via email? Can you be ordered to delete all videos related to Adani within just a few hours... If we don’t delete these videos, YouTube, on the court’s instructions, will delete them itself through the system. Meaning, we have no control over this,” Mr. Sharma said.

Satirist Akash Banerjee, who runs the YouTube channel ‘Deshbhakt‘ with over six million subscribers, said he had been given 36 hours to remove more than 200 pieces of content without any opportunity to contest the order. “One of the richest, most powerful and well-connected businessmen in the world is fighting small independent YouTubers. A man who owns one of India’s biggest media conglomerates is discovering that news content creators with one camera, broadcasting from one room, have one thing that money can’t buy,” Mr. Banerjee wrote on social media platform X.

The Editors Guild of India on Wednesday said it was “deeply concerned” over the “John Doe” ex parte injunction that risks chilling legitimate reporting and undermining the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. It added that the subsequent action taken by the I&B Ministry in issuing takedown notices had “effectively given a private corporation powers to determine what constitutes defamatory content regarding their affairs”. It has also urged the judiciary to ensure that defamation claims were addressed through due process and not “one-sided injunctions”.

‘Pre-trial censorship’

In March 2024, the Supreme Court had flagged the growing trend of affluent litigants obtaining pre-trial injunctions against the media and civil society, which effectively gagged free speech and the public’s right to information. A three-judge Bench led by then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud warned that ex parte interim injunctions, often granted mechanically, could spell a “death sentence” for journalistic work even before allegations were proven.

“The Constitutional mandate of protecting journalistic expression cannot be understated, and courts must tread cautiously while granting pre-trial interim injunctions,” the Bench had observed while hearing an appeal filed by Bloomberg Television Production Services against an ex parte,ad interim order of a Delhi district court in March 2024, which had directed the removal of an article from its online platform.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hedge told The Hindu that the ex parte injunction failed to satisfy the three-fold test for any interim relief — establishing a prima facie case, the balance of convenience, and irreparable loss or harm. “The gag order virtually amounts to a blank cheque for censorship at the behest of a commercial corporation. Pre-censorship is disfavoured in law, and the government’s hurried execution, without specific judicial directions, raises deeply troubling questions for free speech in India,” he said.