Guwahati: The Gujarat High Court has reserved its order on journalist Ravi Nair’s plea challenging his arrest in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprise Limited, meaning he is likely to remain in judicial custody until at least September 30.

A sessions court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Nair over his alleged non-appearance in the case. In his plea, Nair contended that the warrant was issued without the court first serving him a formal summons or notice.

Nair appeared before the court on September 17 and sought cancellation of the warrant but was subsequently remanded to judicial custody.

Justice M.K. Thakker heard arguments in the matter on September 23 and reserved the order for September 30. Nair’s counsel, advocate Abhik Chimni, had sought interim relief.

During the hearing, Chimni submitted that Nair had regularly participated in the trial. He said Nair had appeared in four of the eight hearings and that the trial court had allowed his application for exemption from personal appearance in July. He also argued that Nair had not been absconding, contrary to the trial court’s position.

Amnesty International has expressed concern over Nair’s arrest, stating that the case raises questions about freedom of expression and fair-trial rights. The Digital News Publishers Association (Digipub) also described the development as concerning.

Nair was sentenced by a trial court in Mansa, Gujarat, to one year in prison and fined Rs 5,000 on February 10 in the defamation case. The court had granted him a one-month stay on his arrest.

The criminal defamation complaint was filed by Adani Enterprise Limited (AEL) on September 3, 2021. The company alleged that Nair had posted a series of tweets on X between October 2020 and July 2021 that were false, misleading, derogatory and defamatory.

According to arguments reported in connection with the case, Nair’s lawyers maintained that his posts were made in good faith and were based on research and articles already available in the public domain. They argued that Nair had shared links to material published by others rather than making the allegations independently, and noted that the authors of those articles had not been prosecuted in the case.