The Wire has been directed by a court in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district to take down 14 articles it published that were critical of Bharat Biotech, the maker of the Covaxin vaccine. Bharat Biotech had filed a Rs 100 crore defamation suit against the news portal, and along with taking down the articles, the court has also restrained The Wire from publishing any defamatory articles on the pharma major and the vaccine. The order was passed by an Additional District Judge at Ranga Reddy District Court, reported Bar and Bench. The order, according to LiveLaw is ad interim — or temporary, and is ex parte — where only one side’s views are heard.
The suit not only named the publisher of the Wire, Foundation for Independent Journalism, The Wire’s editors Siddharth Varadarajan, Siddharth Bhatia and MK Venu, as well as nine authors of articles. These included Vasudevan Mukunth, Priyanka Pulla, Banjot Kaur and Neeta Sanghi.
LiveLaw reported that the counsel for Bharat Biotech had argued that the articles contained false allegations against Bharat Biotech and Covaxin and were intended to malign the company’s reputation.
“The Wire published several articles making false statements without proper fact check about the regulatory approvals granted to Bharat Biotech. Even after the Government of India had approved the vaccine, articles continued to be published otherwise on The Wire,” the court said, according to LiveLaw. The court added that Bharat Biotech is the only one authorised to manufacture vaccines for children between the ages of 15 and 18, and that the articles in question will lead to vaccine hesitancy.
“I am of the considered opinion that in order to avoid multiplicity of proceedings, this is a fit case to dispense with the issuance of prior notice before ordering ad-interim injunction directing the respondents from further publishing any defamatory articles regarding the petitioner and its product Covaxin. Hence, prior notice is dispensed with,” the court said in the order, reported LiveLaw.
The Wire’s editor Siddharth Varadarajan took to Twitter to say that it was not given the chance to refute the claims made by Bharat Biotech.
“So 14 deeply reported #Covaxin stories— published over a year—ordered to be taken down by a local AP court with no notice served on @TheWire_in, no chance given for us to refute whatever false claims @BharatBiotech has made against us! Let me say this—BB’s bullying will not work,” he wrote.
In a statement, the editors of The Wire said that they saw the report on Bar and Bench, and that they were not served any notice or intimated in any way about the proceedings.
"At no stage were we contacted by Bharat Biotech or its counsel. The Telangana court’s order, which we have learned about only through Bar and Bench, has been passed without giving The Wire an opportunity to be heard. The Wire will, as a matter of course, legally challenge this order, which we have not seen yet. We have not been properly notified of any order, much less a certified copy of the same," the statement said.
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Like the rest of the media in India, we have published dozens of articles on Bharat Biotech, going back to 2020, in exercise of this right and will resist any attempt to curb freedom of the press," the statement added.