Gujarat HC Dismisses Journalist Ravi Nair's Plea to Quash FIR Over Washington Post Article on LIC-Adani Investments

The Gujarat High Court refused to quash an FIR against journalist Ravi Nair, holding that a prior defamation complaint by Adani Ports did not bar a separate FIR for cognizable offences arising from the same facts.

Justice M. R. Mengdey, sitting singly at the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad, dismissed a petition filed by journalist Ravi Nair seeking to quash FIR No. 11191011260156 of 2026, registered on 29 May 2026 by the D.C.B. Police Station, Ahmedabad City. The FIR was lodged by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (Respondent No. 2) following an article Nair published in The Washington Post on 24 October 2025 alleging that the Government of India and the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) had directed investment of large funds in Adani Group companies. The court found that the FIR charged cognizable offences altogether different from those in an earlier private defamation complaint, and that no case for quashing was made out.

The Article, the FIR, and the Prior Complaint

The Washington Post article, published under Nair's byline, claimed that following legal action initiated against the Adani Group in the United States, Indian officials had decided to make investments of USD 3.9 billion in Adani Group entities. Nair also posted about this on his Twitter handle. According to the FIR, the article relied on documents purportedly issued by the LIC or the Department of Financial Services.

LIC subsequently denied on its social media account that those documents had been issued by it, and stated that it had received no instructions from the Government regarding investments in Adani Group entities. The Ministry of Finance, Department of Financial Services Insurance – II Section, addressed a communication dated 24 December 2025 to the Superintendent of Police, Gandhinagar, stating that the allegations in the article were false, baseless, and not based on facts. The department stated that no such document or plan as described in the article had ever been prepared by it or by LIC.

Well before the FIR, on 22 April 2026, Adani Ports had filed a private complaint against Nair before a Magistrate for offences under Sections 356(1), 356(2), and 356(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — provisions covering defamation. That complaint remained pending when the FIR for different cognizable offences was registered on 29 May 2026. The FIR charged Nair under Sections 318(4), 336(2), 336(4), and 340(2) of the BNS.

Nair also received a notice under Section 35(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, dated 13 June 2026, requiring him to appear before the investigating agency. He appeared on 21 July 2026 but, according to the State, did not cooperate with the investigation and left, stating he wanted to go to Kerala.

Petitioner's Case: Abuse of Process and Harassment

Nair approached the Gujarat High Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India read with Section 528 of the BNSS, praying for a writ of certiorari to quash the FIR and, pending hearing, a stay of investigation along with a direction restraining any coercive action including arrest.

Counsel Mr. Abhik Chimni, appearing with Mr. Arjun M. Joshi, argued that the FIR was a sheer abuse of the process of law. The core submission was that Adani Ports had already raised the same set of facts before a Magistrate through the private complaint of 22 April 2026. When the Magistrate did not order any inquiry or investigation on that complaint, Adani Ports registered the FIR — in effect attempting a second bite at the same facts through a different procedural route. The purpose, counsel submitted, was to harass the petitioner.

On the substance of the FIR, the petitioner argued that LIC's denial of the documents cited in the article could not, by itself, make those documents forged or render Nair liable for the offences alleged. A denial by LIC did not amount to proof that the documents were fabricated.

Counsel also relied on two Supreme Court decisions. In Kapil Agarwal & Ors. v. Sanjay Sharma & Ors. — (2021) 5 SCC 524, the Supreme Court had acknowledged that while there is no general bar on lodging an FIR after a complaint on the same facts, a subsequent FIR that is an abuse of process or lodged only to harass the accused can be quashed under Article 226 of the Constitution or Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Counsel also placed reliance on State of Rajasthan v. Surendra Singh Rathore — 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 227, submitting that the impugned FIR did not fall within the permissible parameters for a second FIR laid down by the Supreme Court in that judgment.

On the question of suppression, counsel denied that Nair had concealed any material fact. He clarified that while Nair had approached the Supreme Court seeking to quash the proceedings in the private complaint, he had not approached the Apex Court challenging the FIR now impugned before the Gujarat High Court. The allegations in Respondent No. 2's affidavit-in-reply suggesting suppression were, counsel submitted, therefore untrue.

Opposition by the State and Adani Ports

The State, represented by Additional Public Prosecutor Mr. J. K. Shah, opposed the petition. The APP pointed to the Government of India's communication of 24 December 2025, which categorically stated that no document or plan described in the article had ever been prepared, and that LIC's investment decisions are taken independently, after due diligence, as per Board-approved policies. Given this denial by both LIC and the Ministry, the APP submitted that the article was based on concocted facts and forged material, and that the aspect of document forgery required investigation. The APP also highlighted that Nair had failed to cooperate with the investigating agency on 21 July 2026.

Senior Advocate Mr. N. D. Nanavaty, appearing for Adani Ports with Mr. Bhadrish S. Raju, raised a preliminary objection on suppression of facts. He submitted that before approaching the Gujarat High Court, Nair had gone to the Supreme Court with the same prayer. The Supreme Court did not entertain the petition and asked him to approach the High Court. This fact, Mr. Nanavaty argued, was not disclosed in the present petition. Instead, a statement on oath was made that Nair had not approached the Supreme Court. This, he submitted, amounted to both a false statement on oath and concealment of a material fact, which by itself warranted dismissal.

On the merits, Mr. Nanavaty argued that defamation is a non-cognizable offence under the BNS and, as a matter of settled law, could only be pursued through a private complaint and not an FIR. The private complaint was therefore necessarily filed only for the defamation charge. The filing of that complaint did not foreclose Adani Ports from separately lodging an FIR for the other cognizable offences — forgery and related charges — emerging from the same underlying facts. The charges in the FIR were, he submitted, altogether different from those in the private complaint.

How the Court Reasoned

Justice Mengdey began with the FIR itself. The court noted that Adani Ports' private complaint of 22 April 2026 was lodged exclusively for the offence of defamation. Under settled law, defamation is a non-cognizable offence for which a private complaint must be filed; an FIR cannot be lodged for it. Accordingly, when Adani Ports lodged the private complaint, it could only have covered the defamation charge.

The FIR of 29 May 2026 charged Nair with offences under Sections 318(4), 336(2), 336(4), and 340(2) of the BNS — provisions that are cognizable and deal with different conduct, primarily forgery-related offences. The court held that though the underlying facts in both proceedings may overlap, the allegations levelled against Nair in the FIR were “altogether different and primafacie make out a cognizable offence.” Merely because Adani Ports had already filed a private complaint for defamation, it could not be precluded from taking recourse to law for the alleged cognizable offences.

The court drew on Kapil Agarwal (supra), which had held that lodging an FIR on the same set of facts as an earlier complaint is not a bar in law. The court went further: in the present case, the allegations in the two proceedings were not even the same, making the case for treating the FIR as an abuse of process even weaker. In those circumstances, the court held, the FIR could not in any terms be characterised as an abuse of process of law.

As to the documents on which the article was based, the court noted that both LIC and the Department of Financial Services had categorically denied that those documents existed or were issued by them. Whether those documents were forged was precisely the question that the investigating agency needed to examine. The court observed that “the existence of such documents is under the clouds and they primafacie appear to be forged.” That was a matter for investigation, not for foreclosure at the quashing stage.

Having regard to these aspects, the court concluded that no case was made out for exercising discretion in favour of the petitioner.

Outcome

Special Criminal Application (Quashing) No. 9270 of 2026 was dismissed by Justice M. R. Mengdey on 11 August 2026. Criminal Misc. Application No. 1 of 2026, which had sought a stay of investigation and a direction against coercive action including arrest, was disposed of as a consequence of the dismissal of the main petition. The FIR and the investigation remain in force.