Gujarat court issues arrest warrant against journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Adani Group had withdrawn complaints against everybody, including the editor but not against the author, said the scribe's lawyer

A court in Gujarat's Mundra in Kutch district on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant against senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in a defamation suit filed by the Adani Group.

"...accused stands charged with complaint under section 500 of IPC. You are hereby directed to arrest the said accused and to produce him before me," Judicial Magistrate Pradeep Soni said in a direction to the Nizamuddin police station in New Delhi.

The Adani Group had filed the defamation suit following his June 2017 article on a "Rs 500 crore bonanza" the group got from the government.

Reached for comments, Thakurta said he is not aware of the court order and directed queries to his lawyer.

"We haven't received any intimation (from the court). This information (on arrest warrant) has come to us from media," his lawyer Anand Yagnik said.

"The magazine (which published the article) is not responsible (for criminal defamation), the case against co-author has been withdrawn but you don't withdraw the complaint against the author," he said. "We have moved a discharge application."

With pandemic affecting court hearings last year, the case filed by Adani had come up before the court on Monday and the court had said it will pass an appropriate order, he added.

"Today they passed an appropriate order," he said, adding the matter had not progressed since 2018-19 and the Adani Group had withdrawn the complaint against everybody else.