On Monday, 26 October, justice Aryak Dutt of the Calcutta High Court passed an ad-interim injunction against the video produced and uploaded by entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia. The court observed that the video contained serious factual imputations against the Adani Group, including allegations of complicity in narcotics smuggling linked to terror funding and procuring police violence and false prosecution against a farmer. The HC noted that no material placed before it showed any finding by an authority to support these allegations.
The court restrained the respondents from publishing, republishing, uploading, sharing or otherwise disseminating the video, its clips, excerpts, shortened versions or materially identical reproductions. “The impugned video is not a news report or an account of proceedings. It is a dramatised narrative, whose title expressly imputes theft, and whose narration and visuals are represented as factual,” the court observed.
“The restraint is confined to one identified video, its clips and its materially identical reproductions,” the court clarified, adding that constructive criticism and truthful reporting supported by evidence would not be barred. The court directed the respondents to remove the video and its allegedly defamatory reproductions from accounts, channels and pages owned or controlled by them.
The suit filed by Adani Enterprises Limited against Sabeer Bhatia and other unidentified persons claimed that the 36-minute video was uploaded on 9 October 2026 and was also posted on Bhatia’s X account. The company claimed that by the same day, the video had received 46,134 views on YouTube and around 40,000 views on X. The company contended that the statements in the video were false and that it had received enquiries from investors and others following its publication. It argued that its right to reputation was an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution.
