On Wednesday (22nd November), the Delhi High Court granted interim relief to Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar ordering ‘The Wire’ to remove an article that levelled corruption allegations against him in connection with the National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) acquisition of land for the Dwarka Motorway project.
“The ad-interim injunction is granted. I have directed Respondent No. 1 (The Wire) and Respondent No. 2 (concerned reporter) to take down the article and the appending tweets,” said the bench led by Justice Sachin Datta.
The court agreed with Naresh Kumar that the article contained defamatory, libellous allegations against the govt official, and insinuations were made in a reckless manner against Kumar without regard to the truth, in order to cause injury to his reputation.
The Wire has taken down the controversial article following the orders of the Delhi High Court. A visit to the URL of the report shows the text, “This article is being taken down as per the ad-interim injunction ordered by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court.” However, it said that the media house “reserved the right to take appropriate recourse in this matter.”
Notably, the court had reserved its decision in the interim application yesterday. The single-judge bench issued a summons in the suit while preserving the order in the application for an ad-interim injunction. Apart from ordering to take down the report, the court also ordered The Wire to remove tweets and other posts used to circulate the report, asking X (Twitter) to remove them if The Wire and the writer of the report fails to remove the posts.
“In the event that defendant nos. 1 & 2 fail to comply with the aforesaid directions within 48 hours of the pronouncement of this judgment, the defendant no. 3 is directed to take down the tweets/posts filed as Document nos. 4 & 5 of the documents filed alongwith the plaint, and the defendant no. 4 is directed to remove search result/s and/or de-index the web link of the article/publication dated 09.11.2023,” the court said.
Justice Sachin Datta said that while freedom of speech and expression is sacrosanct, the reputation of a person earned over several decades cannot be sacrificed at the altar of such freedom. The court noted that there was a political angle to the allegations against the chief secretary. The judgement said, “In the present case, the Court has also taken note of the crescendo of politically motivated tweets/posts/comments, virtually in sync with the publication of the aforesaid article/publication dated 09.11.2023, which further validate the necessity of urgent injunctive order/s. Incidentally, one such tweet is by the author of the “preliminary report” sought to be relied upon by the learned counsel for defendant nos. 1 and 2. The said report, which is dated 14.11.2023, ex-facie, cannot afford any justification for the impugned article dated 09.11.2023.”
The court also commented that the allegations against Kumar are “quite far-fetched”. The court stated, “Further, the nexus sought to be drawn between the person which was the beneficiary of the arbitral award dated 15.05.2023 and the son of the plaintiff is also quite far-fetched, to say the least, contrary to what has been sought to be projected in the title/caption of the impugned article.”
Talking about the allegations The Wire made against Kumar, the court said that linking enhanced compensation awarded for acquiring land for Dwarka Expressway with Kumar’s “handling” of the matter is “completely misconceived”, because the enhancement of the compensation was done as per an arbitral award dated 15.05.2023.
“The said award was passed by another IAS Officer in his capacity as arbitrator. It cannot be said, by any stretch of imagination, that the plaintiff could have interfered with the discharge of quasi-judicial functions entrusted to another officer,” the Delhi High Court said in its order, making it clear that Naresh Kumar had no role in deciding the compensation paid for the land acquisition.
Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appearing for Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar contended that within no time of publication of the article, the social media began trolling and tarnishing his image.
“You build a connection in your dream, and then you concoct everything. The article was published so that social media gets active to target my reputation. I am not a political person… He was instrumental in getting these inquiries in the excise policy done, and the Supreme Court has now said that there seems to be at least ₹350 crore bribe which the ED has been able to show in the excise scam. I do not want to say anything, but this seems to be one of the foundations for the article,” he added.
However, Advocate Sarin Naved appearing for the Wire said that the media house intended to raise crucial questions. “The intention was not to defame Kumar in any manner,” he added.
According to The Wire’s report titled ‘Links of Delhi Chief Secretary’s Son to Beneficiary’s Family in Land Over-Valuation Case Raise Questions’ published on 9th November, Kumar’s son, Karan Chauhan, had associations with a family that benefited from higher compensation when NHAI obtained a plot of land for the Dwarka Motorway.
In addition to requesting that the article be removed, Kumar asked the court to prevent The Wire and its reporter, Meetu Jain, from publishing any further defamatory content.
Kumar had previously served The Wire and Meetu Jain with a legal notice, delivered through Advocate Bani Dikshit on 13th November, demanding that the article be removed within 48 hours. The report was labelled as defamatory, false, baseless, and misleading, according to the notice.
Kumar claimed that he proactively addressed the issue and prevented any wrongful loss to the public wallet. He claimed responsibility for recommending that the case be referred to the CBI on October 20, 2023.
The outrage surrounding Kumar grew when Delhi’s Vigilance Minister, Atishi, submitted an initial report to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleging that Kumar profited from a company linked to his son, totalling Rs. 897 crore. Atishi also suggested a CBI investigation and the suspension of Kumar and Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar.
Kejriwal passed on the report to Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena, requesting that Kumar be suspended and removed as Chief Secretary immediately. However, Saxena rejected the report on 17th November, citing its prejudicial presumptions and potential interference with the ongoing investigation. Saxena emphasized that the case is already before the Supreme Court and being investigated by the CBI and that the leaked secret report is an attempt to start a media trial.
The Wire and forced to delete reports
This is the latest in the series of reports that The Wire has been forced to take down. In October last year, the propaganda outlet was forced to take down a series of articles alleging that BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya had some superpowers to remove posts from Meta-owned Instagram. The outlet was found to have used fake and doctored documents to make the claims but was forced to retract after its lies were exposed.
Soon after The Wire removed its earlier reports on the so-called ‘Tek Fog’, an alleged app used by BJP with supposed superpowers to manipulate all social media platforms. The app was fictitious, it didn’t exist and was only created by The Wire. The portal blamed the author of the articles for making the baseless allegations.
The portal also removed several videos it had posted ‘explaining’ the Meta and Tek Fog allegations.
Before that in February 2022, a court in Telangana had ordered leftist propaganda portal The Wire to take down as many as 14 articles it had published against Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech and the Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin developed by it. The order was passed after Bharat Biotech had filed an Rs100 crore defamation suit against The Wire and 12 persons associated with it.
