The Adani legal notice or letter is an example of what media analysts and lawyers call 'strategic lawsuits against public participation' – or SLAPPs.
The wire reported that Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) editor Paranjoy Guha Thakurta became the first top-level editorial casualty of corporate India's increasing tendency to file multi-crore defamation cases as a means of countering critical reporting, resigning after the directors of the trust which runs the storied journal ordered him to take down two articles on the Adani group.
Last month, Adani Power Ltd. sent a letter via its lawyers to EPW, the article's four authors (which included Thakurta) and Sameeksha Trust, which owns and runs the journal.
that they said were defamatory and harmful to the reputation of their client.
The letter said that unless this was done, "our clients shall be constrained to take such action as they may be advised".
On Tuesday, the Sameeksha Trust board, which met in Delhi, ordered the editorial department to take the two articles down (alongside which Thakurta had also posted a copy of the Adani letter and a legal response by EPW).
Thakurta resigned soon after the meeting.
Adani's lawyers have informed Thakurta that they will be writing to The Wire as well demanding the articles be taken down.
Founded in 1949 as the Economic Weekly, EPW took on its current name in 1966 and is one of India's most respected publications, straddling scholarship and political commentary. Thakurta, a highly regarded business journalist and political commentator, took over the editorship in January 2017 from C. Rammanohar Reddy, who ran the journal for over a decade.
The National Democratic Alliance politician and MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar filed two defamation suits worth Rs 10 crore each against The Wire in March 2017 for having published articles that focused on his new media venture, Republic TV, and the potential conflict of interest involved in his serving on the parliament's standing committee for defence while owning companies that are involved in the military sphere. Unusually, Chandrashekhar managed to secure an ex parte injunction from a local court in Bengaluru for the two articles to be taken down, without The Wire even being heard.
Chandrashekhar's suits are currently being challenged by the Foundation for Independent Journalism, the not-for-profit company that publishes The Wire.
The Wire's editors have also been summoned by the chief judicial magistrate in Aizawl, Mizoram, following the registration of a criminal defamation case by E-Cool Gaming Solutions – a company linked to ZEE TV owner Subhash Chandra – for an article published in The Wire based on a CAG report critical of the functioning of one of his group companies involved in the lottery business in the northeastern state.
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