The court issued this unprecedented decision on 6 September in a defamation suit by Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), a subsidiary of the powerful conglomerate led by billionaire Gautam Adani, who is close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Targeting five independent journalists — Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi — as well as the news sites paranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com, the order requires the deletion of a long list of articles and social-media posts and prohibits their publication, broadcast or rebroadcast. Why? Because the court’s prima facie analysis concluded they were potentially defamatory on the sole ground that the Adani Group had not previously been convicted.

Worse still, the court extended the order to “similar” content, whether already published or not yet published as of the date of the decision, giving the Adani subsidiary the power to determine which content is “unverified, unsubstantiated and manifestly defamatory” and to demand its removal without judicial oversight.

The order also contains a “John Doe” clause allowing the multinational to extend its action to unnamed third parties. AEL may thus transmit to platforms such as Meta and Google, via government agencies, the URLs and links of any content it considers defamatory because it is “similar” to the initial list; the platforms are then compelled to delete such content within 36 hours. A private-sector company is thereby being granted the power to decide what may be said about its activities.

On 16 September, acting on a note sent by AEL, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting sent notices to several media and YouTube or Instagram channels to demand the deletion of more than 138 YouTube videos and 83 Instagram posts mentioning AEL.

The targeted content included material from online outlets such as The Wire, Newslaundry and HW News, as well as YouTube videos by Ravish Kumar, a journalist awarded the RSF Prize for Independence in 2024. By its own admission, the ministry acted as a mere “post office,” without even a cursory check that the publications targeted by Adani met the conditions of the 6 September decision.

Following appeals filed by journalists Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskant Das and Ayush Joshi, a New Delhi court partially set aside the interim order on 18 September as it applied to them. The court had initially issued the order ex parte — without giving the respondents an opportunity to present their side of the facts. On appeal, the judge held that the journalists should have been heard before their articles were labelled defamatory and their removal ordered.

A few days later, on 25 September, a Delhi court suspended the ban preventing journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta from covering the Adani Group, pending a new judgment. Newslaundry and Ravish Kumar have also filed appeals. Contacted by RSF for comment on these cases, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting did not respond.

“A private-sector company should not be able unilaterally to determine whether journalistic information is defamatory. And the government should neither substitute itself for private-sector plaintiffs nor orchestrate mass removals of content without verifying their relevance, let alone before any decision on the merits. Any allegation of defamation must be assessed on the basis of evidence. Such measures amount to censorship and pose a direct threat to press freedom. They open the way to major abuses aimed at deterring any journalistic investigation and deprive the public of information in the public interest. RSF calls for the immediate and complete annulment of the Ministry of Information’s notices targeting journalistic content, and for the restoration of press articles and posts already removed pending an adversarial review.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Ravi Nair have been repeatedly targeted in recent years for their journalistic investigations into the Adani conglomerate. Seven defamation cases brought against Paranjoy Guha Thakurta by companies linked to the Adani Group are still currently ongoing.