Gandhinagar court grants bail to journalist Ravi Nair in Adani defamation case

Gandhinagar sessions court granted regular bail to journalist Ravi Nair, who was sent to judicial custody a week ago after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him

A Gandhinagar sessions court on Thursday granted regular bail to journalist Ravi Nair, who was sent to judicial custody a week ago after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL).

Principal district and sessions judge Ashish JS Malhotra allowed Nair’s regular bail application on Thursday.

Nair was taken into custody on September 17 after the court rejected his plea seeking cancellation of the warrant issued over his failure to remain personally present during a hearing in his appeal against his conviction.

The case followed a complaint filed by AEL, the Adani Group’s flagship company, alleging that the accused published and disseminated a series of tweets containing false and defamatory statements intended to damage the reputation of AEL and the Adani Group. A Judicial Magistrate First Class court in Mansa had on February 10 convicted Nair of criminal defamation, sentenced him to one year of simple imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹5,000.

Nair challenged the conviction before the Gandhinagar sessions court, which suspended his sentence and granted him bail on March 9, subject to conditions including his regular presence during the appeal proceedings.

On September 3, his application seeking exemption from personal appearance was rejected and the court issued a non-bailable warrant. He appeared before the court on September 17 and sought cancellation of the warrant, but the plea was rejected and he was sent to judicial custody.

He approached the Gujarat High Court challenging the warrant and his custody. On Wednesday, the High Court refused to grant him interim relief and reserved its order on his petition for September 30.

The regular bail application before the sessions court was heard separately and was allowed on Thursday.

He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.Read More