The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Gujarat Police not to take any coercive action against two Financial Times journalists who were summoned for an article on the Adani group.
Importantly, summoned journalists Benjamin Parkin and Chloe Cornish did not write the report alleged by the Gujarat police.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra sought the Gujarat Police’s response on the matter and ordered no coercive action against the journalists till the next date of hearing.
During the hearing, the court questioned why the two journalists had approached the Supreme Court for redress instead of approaching the High Court first.
“If everyone comes here, the trial will be difficult,” the court said verbally.
Senior advocate Siddharth Agarwal, appearing for the journalists, clarified that neither Parkin nor Cornish were the authors of the report on Adani and they do not live in Gujarat.
Agarwal explained that the decision to approach the Supreme Court was taken to avoid filing separate petitions in two different High Courts of Delhi and Gujarat.
Agarwal said on the same occasion that two journalists were summoned from Delhi to Gujarat for preliminary interrogation within a short span of seven days.
Agarwal said the article in question was similar to another article published by the ‘Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Scheme’ (OCCRP). Notably, the Supreme Court last week granted interim protection to two other authors of the OCCRP report.
