Adani-Hindenburg: Supreme Court directs not to take punitive action against 2 journalists

The Supreme Court directed last Friday (November 10) that no punitive action should be taken against two journalists of The Financial Times newspaper. Both these journalists were called by Gujarat Police for preliminary investigation in connection with a report published in the newspaper regarding Adani Group companies.

Issuing notice on the plea of two journalists – Benjamin Nicholas Brooke Parkin and Chloe Nina Cornish – a bench of Justices BR Gavai and PK Mishra fixed the matter for hearing on December 1. The bench also directed that no punitive action will be taken till then. The bench also asked both the journalists to cooperate in the investigation.

The bench expressed displeasure over the petitioners contacting the High Court directly instead of going to it. Justice Gavai commented, ‘This trend is now becoming very difficult, everyone is directly approaching the Supreme Court.’

Senior advocate Siddharth Aggarwal, appearing for the journalists, said that they were not the authors of the report, but were correspondents of the newspaper posted in New Delhi and Mumbai. He also told that on November 3, the court had provided protection from coercive action to two other people who had written another news regarding the Hindenburg report on Adani Group.

The lawyer said that the investigation was being conducted on the complaint of an investor of Adani Group and said that it could be a complaint of defamation at most which is non-cognizable.

He said, ‘One person (journalist) is in Delhi, while the other is in Mumbai. Based on the complaint of some people, a preliminary inquiry has been ordered saying that this report is false. After this, Gujarat Police has personally called him across the state borders, regarding which the apex court had earlier said that this cannot be done.

He said that he has come to the Supreme Court instead of going to the High Courts because the bench is already hearing similar cases. It may be noted that earlier this week, the apex court had granted interim protection to journalists Ravi Nair and Anand Manganale in connection with an article written by them on the Adani-Hindenburg dispute.