The Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in a petition filed by journalist Ravi Nair against a notice issued to him by the Gujarat Crime Branch in connection with an article that he co-authored about Adani Ports and SEZ Limited, Live Law reported.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta asked Nair to move the Gujarat High Court instead, The Hindu reported. It then allowed him to withdraw the petition
The journalist had moved the Supreme Court against a Gujarat Crime Branch notice issued on February 12 in connection with an article published in October 2025 in The Washington Post titled “India’s $3.9 billion plan to help Modi’s mogul ally after US charges”, Live Law reported.
The article had been authored by Nair and Pranshu Verma, former New Delhi bureau chief for The Washington Post.
The notice issued to Nair on February 12 summoned him to the office of the Gujarat Crime Branch on February 19 for a preliminary enquiry in connection with the article and one of his posts on social media.
In his petition against the notice, Nair said that the The Washington Post article “revealed how Indian officials drafted and pushed through a proposal in May 2025 to steer roughly $3.9 billion in investments to Adani Group businesses from the Life Insurance Corporation of India, a state-owned entity primarily responsible for providing life insurance to poor and rural families”, The Hindu reported.
It claimed that the Gujarat Crime Branch notice sought to “criminalise journalistic work carried out in good faith, after due diligence, and in the public interest”. Nair contended that the crime branch’s actions threatened his constitutional rights to equality, freedom of expression, and protection of life and liberty, the newspaper reported.
The state government authorities were “illegally indulging in a roving and fishing inquiry against the petitioner without jurisdiction”, the petition claimed.
During the proceedings in the Supreme Court, Nair’s counsel argued that industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Group had initiated three cases against the journalist and added that he was repeatedly being harassed, Live Law reported.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited is a part of the Adani Group.
However, the bench asked why a petition was filed under Article 32 instead of moving the jurisdictional High Court. In response, Grover said that it is “a fundamental right”.
Article 32 guarantees the right to directly approach the Supreme Court for the enforcement of fundamental rights.
Earlier case
On February 13, Nair was granted bail in another criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Limited in connection with a series of posts on the social media platform X.
A magisterial court in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar also suspended for a month the one-year prison sentence awarded to him.
The court had convicted Nair on February 10 and sentenced him to one year of imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 5,000.
The case pertained to a series of social media posts by Nair from October 2020 to July 2021 about the Adani Group, including allegations by United States short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.
The case was based on a complaint filed by Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of Adani Group, alleging that Nair published and disseminated a series of posts on X containing false and defamatory statements intended to damage its reputation.
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