Appearing for the journalists, Senior Advocate Siddharth Agarwal clarified that neither Parkin nor Cornish were the authors of the article and that they did not reside in Gujarat. Agarwal further explained that the decision to approach the Supreme Court was made to avoid filing separate petitions in two different High Courts, that of Delhi and Gujarat.
Agarwal added that the two journalists were summoned from Delhi to Gujarat for a preliminary inquiry within a short span of seven days.
Additionally, he highlighted that the article in question was similar to another article (which had alleged stock manipulation by the Adani group) published by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Notably, two authors who wrote the OCCRP article were granted interim relief by the Supreme Court last week.
Source: Barandbench
