The Gujarat High Court on Monday (November 2) dismissed journalist Ravi Nair's plea challenging a sessions court order which rejected his plea to bring on record additional evidence concerning a defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Ltd.

Adani Enterprises Ltd filed the criminal defamation case alleging that Ravi Nair published and disseminated a series of tweets containing false and defamatory statements intended to damage the reputation of AEL and the Adani Group.

On 10.02.2026, the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Mansa held Nair guilty of the offence of defamation, convicted and sentenced him to undergo simple imprisonment for a term of one year and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000.

Justice RT Vachhani in the order referred to Section 391 CrPC and said that the provision made it explicitly clear that to permit the party to produce the additional evidence on being satisfied with the grounds agitated by the petitioner must show, that despite due diligence and honest efforts the petitioner could not produce the documents in question and those are the documents which touches to the root of the matter and in absence thereof the petitioner may suffer a huge loss.

The court however noted that it appeared and was conceded by the petitioner's counsel as well as reflected from the appellate court's order that the documents which were sought to be produced by the petitioner, already formed part of the record. It said:

"While keeping in mind the aforesaid provision, it appears as conceded by the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner, so also reflects from the conclusion arrived by the learned first appellate Court that the documents sought to be produced are already forming the part of the record and therefore, the provision of Section 391 of Cr.PC cannot be invoked.

Therefore, without much delving on the other aspects as contended and raised by the learned Counsel for the petitioner while confining only to the issue of production of additional evidence when can be permitted as discussed in the preceding paragraphs the need would never arise if the documents sought to be produced as an additional evidence which is already forming the part of the record".

The court noted that though Nair's counsel laid emphasis on Section 3 of the Evidence Act, however it opined that the provision pertains to the appreciation of evidence and has no application to the issue on hand, inasmuch as the issue herein is confined to whether the request for production of additional evidence deserves to be acceded to or not as per Section 391 Cr.PC.

"Therefore, the aforesaid submission does not inspire confidence and does not merit acceptance at this stage.For the foregoing reasons, the present revision application is devoid of merits and is accordingly dismissed," the court said. 

The court however clarified that its reasoning assigned in the order is confined to the issue at hand only and would not come in the way of either of the parties to agitate the issue before the first appellate Court which otherwise would be dealt with in accordance with the law, uninfluenced by the dismissal of the present plea. 

Nair had argued that at the trial, the complainant itself had exhibited certain tweets, together with, in each case, a "News Link" field disclosing the third-party news report the tweet referred to and had exhibited the two articles in full as Exhibits 61 and 62. The material the Applicant now seeks to produce is not new evidence, he has claimed.

He claimed that the material is the full text of the third-party news reports that the complainant's own Exhibits 46 to 60 already identify. He had said that truth and public good are complete defences to defamation and the court cannot test the truth of the imputations, or the Applicant's good faith, without examining the sources he had relied on.

Meanwhile Adani Enterprises claimed that documents were produced at a belated stage and the petitioner had an ample opportunity before the Magisterial Court while examining and cross-examining the prosecution witness, as also at the time of evaluation of the documentary evidence.

It was argued that the petitioner despite being in a position of the documents and knowledge of existence of the document in question had failed to make a reference thereof and it is only after the order of conviction was passed by the Magistrate Court and subsequently assailed before the first Appellate Court that the petitioner sought to challenge the order refusing the application seeking production of additional documents. 

Senior advocate Madhav Khurana, advocates Abhik Chimni and Ronith Joy appeared for Nair. 

APP Rohan Raval appeared for State.

Senior advocate Mitesh Amin, advocate Badrish Raju and Dhanesh Patel appeared for Adani Enterprises Ltd.