Sreya Kanugula
The Gujarat Kutch district court issued a warrant of arrest against the renowned journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, connected to a case of defamation filed against him by the Adani Group.
Pradeep Soni, the judicial magistrate stated in his order that Mr. Thakurta had been charged under the Indian Penal Code’s Section 500. The magistrate gave directions to New Delhi’s Nizamuddin police station to make the arrest of the accused and produce him in front of the court.
Mr. Anand Yagnik, the accused’s advocate said that they haven’t been intimated and that this information was given to them by the media.
The Adani Group served the notice for defamation to Mr. Thakurta when was still the Economic and Political Weekly’s (EPW) editor in the year 2017.
In the month of June of the same year, the aforementioned magazine printed a story written by Thakurta about how the rules had been tweaked by the government to create special economic zones, which in turn led to the Adani Group’s profit of over Rs. 500 crores.
The magazine was made to take down said article after the notice was served. This was done so after Mr. Thakurta gave his resignation to the magazine and the Sameeksha Trust board, the ones who still run EPW, had given the order for the article’s takedown.
Mr. Thakurta’s advocate also mentioned to the Press Trust that the magazine was not responsible for the defamation case and that the case had been withdrawn against the co-author of the article but the complaint doesn’t get withdrawn against the primary writer.
And that they had moved the court for a discharge application.
The Wire, another socio-political focused magazine, republished the same story on the Adani Group with the permission of EPW.