A Win For Press Freedom: Court Allows Reuters To Republish Story On Shady Indian Firm

You may recall last December when we wrote about the somewhat shocking news that an Indian court had ordered Reuters to take down an entire article investigating a company, Appin and its founder Rajat Khare, that were accused of running a giant “hacking for hire” operation. Ten months later, that article is back online with a new editor’s note:

Editor’s note: This article, originally published on Nov. 16, 2023, was removed from Reuters.com in response to a temporary injunction issued by a New Delhi district court on Dec. 4, 2023. Before publication, a group calling itself the Association of Appin Training Centers had filed suit to prevent the report from running. The association accused Reuters of damaging the reputations of training centers and their students, an allegation Reuters disputes. After publication, the court granted a temporary injunction, and Reuters took down the story while it appealed. On Oct. 3, 2024, the district court vacated its injunction. The article has now been reposted here, with an update in paragraph 14 to note that there’s no suggestion that bona fide students of the training centers were involved in hacking.

Appin had gone around using various law firms (including the infamous speech suppressors at US law firm Clare Locke) to demand publications remove articles or mentions of Khare. Some, such as Lawfare (which absolutely knows better), caved and took down or redacted their stories. Others (like us) refused to be bullied.

I was able to get my hands on the recent Indian court order that dismissed the original injunction. Experts in Indian law had told me last year that the kind of injunction that forced Reuters to take down its story were unfortunately common. They were based not on a full review of the situation, but rather the courts were often willing to take an “injunction first, investigate later” approach to things, which could take some time, given how busy the courts are.

It appears that’s what happened. Once the court finally looked at the issue (albeit nearly a year after forcing the article down), they realized that it did not make sense to suppress it and allowed it to come back.

The court here even notes that the Indian Supreme Court has more or less said that courts shouldn’t issue an injunction against publication, so long as the journalism organization “intends to justify” what they wrote, and that what they wrote is “a matter of public interest.”

Quoting from some English decisions, the Hon’ble Supreme Court further indicated that the Court will not restrain the publication of an article, even though it is defamatory, when the defendant says he intends to justify it or to make fair comment on a matter of public interest.

The court then notes that since some of the concerns are about students of the Appin training centers feeling maligned, and Reuters agreed (as in the note above) to clarify that they were not implying actual students of the training centers were involved in any hack-for-hire scheme, the court deemed that the injunction should be dismissed and the article could be put back online:

From the arguments of parties and also from the available record I am unable to find any justification to issue interim injunction against publication of articles or published articles. However, during the course of arguments, Ld. Counsel for defendant no.1 to 4 (i.e. the main contesting parties) have assured that his clients are not interested in maligning the reputation of students and also the plaintiff association which came into being only in the year 2022 and that the articles will have necessary clarificatory massage incorporated therein. In such circumstances, binding such defendants with the assurances so given, it is held that as at present, the plaintiff has not been able to show any prima facie case to make interference in the process of journalism.

The interim injunction application of the plaintiff is dismissed.

It does seem somewhat crazy, though, that this article was unavailable for nearly a year when the court is saying that it can’t “find any justification” for an injunction, and that the Supreme Court has already established that the courts should not restrain the publication of an article.

And yet, the courts did exactly that for almost a year.

Of course, now that the article is back again, it seems likely to get renewed attention to the whole thing. So, if Rajat Khare’s lawyers want to contact us and reveal other things they insist he had nothing to do with (even things no one was reporting on), feel free to reach out.

Or maybe Khare and his lawyers can just respond to the allegations, rather than trying to suppress speech.

Attacking the media through lawfare techniques (yes, it’s ironic that a publication named Lawfare caved to this nonsense) is unfortunately common. It’s ridiculous, stressful, and resource-intensive for the publications and reporters involved. Thus, it’s good to celebrate and highlight the victories when they come through. Congrats to Reuters for succeeding here.