Speaking to Newslaundry, Bal described Outlook’s clarification as a “piece of bullshit”. He argued it was Radia’s dictation that turned out to be Sanghvi’s original sin, not the 2G scam. “They [the Radia tapes] were directly connected to the exploitation of natural gas and resources and how he [Sanghvi] was writing columns at the bidding of Reliance. The transcripts I saw had nothing to do with the 2G case. So in that strict sense if Outlook mentioned the 2G case was related to Vir Sanghvi then they probably made a factual mistake as far as I am concerned … What we [Open] did was pretty clear. We spent two months on the story. Vir Sanghvi’s role is pretty clear—he literally wrote a column which was literally dictated by Niira Radia. It was written word-for-word in a way that suited Niira Radia and the Ambanis … It’s pretty damning about Vir Sanghvi and the kind of journalism he does.”