The High Court concluded arguments on the portal’s plea and reserved its order. The High Court concluded arguments on the portal’s plea and reserved its order.

BJP president Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah on Thursday filed an affidavit in the Gujarat High Court, supporting an ex parte order passed by Ahmedabad district court asking Delhi-based news portal The Wire not to publish any further report on his company’s turnover.

The Wire moved the High Court after the district court, Mirzapur, last month passed the order in favour of Jay. The High Court concluded arguments on the portal’s plea and reserved its order.

According to a report published by the portal last month, the turnover of Jay’s firm grew 16,000 times over in the year following the BJP’s election to power at the Centre in 2014. In his affidavit in the High Court, 29-year-old Jay said: “Absence of such an order defeats the very object of filing the (defamation) suit as well as the application…since the defendants (The Wire) therein will continue to damage the reputation of the original plaintiff-respondent (Jay) herein for unknown oblique purposes.”

The affidavit was filed on a petition moved by The Wire on November 2 against the order passed by additional senior civil judge B K Dasondi on October 12. “It appears to this court that injunction should be granted to applicant/plaintiff (Jay) though notice has not been served upon the opposite parties so that the right to live with dignity of the plaintiff may be protected,” the order stated.

The lower court’s order had come on a defamation suit and damage for Rs 100 crore filed by Jay, days after The Wire published the article “The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah” on his firm’s turnover.The portal in the High Court argued that “application was moved at 4:15 pm and order was passed within minutes.”

The Wire’s petition mentions, “The trial judge passed the order on the same day within minutes since the court time is till 5 pm. The judge had no time to read the plaint and the application for injunction and go through the documents in support thereof, read, understand and analyse the article complained against and to be properly instructed at the Bar on facts and in law.”

Senior lawyer Nirupam Nanavati appearing for Jay argued that “the article per say is defamatory…it was written because I am so and so…there is nothing that I have earned illegitimately. The article has been written just to implicate and castigate me.” Besides, Nanavati also pointed out that ex parte order was passed on October 12 and instead of going back to the same court, the petitioner came directly to the High Court.

The lawyers representing the portal argued that the ex parte order itself is against the provision and there are procedural lapses on the part of the concerned court.

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