The Supreme Court on Wednesday suggested to the lawyers representing The Wire to resolve the differences with BJP Amit Shah's son Jay Shah over a report that claimed the turnover of Jay Shah’s firm grew exponentially after BJP came to power in 2014.
Though Shah’s “counsel said his client was open to a settlement” in the defamation case filed over an article ‘The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah’, The Wire's lawyer replied that the article was published in public interest and that there is no question of any settlement.
On October 8, 2017, The Wire in the article reported that the turnover of a company owned by Jay Amitbhai Shah, son of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah, increased 16,000 times over in the year following the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister and the elevation of his father to the post of party president.
After the news surfaced, Jay Shah had filed a criminal defamation case in a metropolitan court against the author of the article Rohini Singh, founding editors of the news portal Siddharth Varadarajan, Siddharth Bhatia and M K Venu, managing editor Monobina Gupta, public editor Pamela Philipose and the owner of the portal, Foundation for Independent Journalism.
Shah had claimed that the article was defaming and tarnishing his reputation. "The article is scandalous, frivolous, misleading, derogatory, libelous and consists of several defamatory statements," Shah was quoted as saying.
The accused then moved the Gujarat high court to get the case quashed, but got no relief, and later moved the Supreme Court.
The apex court directed the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate not to proceed with the criminal defamation proceedings against The Wire until the court hearing is over.
