The Bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud issued notice to the Gujarat trial court to suspend the proceedings against the The Wire, a news portal till April 12th.
A defamation case was filed against the Wire, a news portal by Jay Shah, son of BJP president Amit Shah. The Apex Court asked the Gujarat Court to not proceed in this criminal defamation case till it hears the matter relating to the quashing of case next on April 12.
While giving this order, the Apex Court also lashed out on media fraternity for “irresponsible reporting”. The Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra criticized media and said “we expect the media should be responsible, electronic media should be more responsible”. The court asserted that media cannot write whatever it feels about anyone. The court emphasized that freedom of speech and expression must be exercised by observing the limits.
However, Chief Justice Misra made it clear that his remarks were of a general nature and not connected to the particular case being heard.
Senior Advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Jay Shah, contended that The Wire story was a “manufactured story, scurrilous reporting” and was meant to damage Shah’s reputation. “The reporting was part of a design”, he said
Kapil Sibal who appeared for the news portal said it was only asking questions to Shah. “If journalism is going to be throttled like this, no journalist can ask questions,” he said.
The article was published by on October 8, 2017 titled ‘Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah’. According to The Wire article, Jay Shah’s firm had increased 16,000 times in the year after Narendra Modi was elected as Prime Minister. Jay Shah has separately filed a civil defamation suit of Rs 100 crore against the website over the article. Jay Shah had rejected the charge made in the article, insisting the story was “false, derogatory and derogatory”.
The Gujarat High Court on January 8 had rejected a petition filed by the news portal, seeking quashing of a criminal defamation case filed against it by Jay Shah over an article related to his company’s sudden financial growth.
The suit has been filed against the author of the article Rohini Singh, founding editors of the news portal Siddharth Varadarajan, Siddharth Bhatia and M K Venu, managing editor Monobina Gupta, public editor Pamela Philipose and the Foundation for Independent Journalism. The foundation publishes The Wire.
After the suit was filed on October 9, 2017, the court initiated proceedings against them under section 202 of Code of Criminal procedure, under which an inquiry can be made to decide whether or not there is sufficient ground for proceeding.
