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On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled against Gujarat police detaining two journalists who had written on the Adani group in light of the company's charges made in the Hindenburg Research study.

The Gujarat government received a notice from the bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra on the petition filed by journalists Ravi Nair and Anand Mangnale contesting their police summonses, even as they were granted temporary protection.

At first, the bench questioned why the petitioners had gone straight to the Supreme Court rather than the state supreme court. In her representation of the journalists, senior attorney Indira Jaising argued that the summonses were a "prelude to arrest" and that they had been issued without the right authority.

She said that the summonses had been sent out by the police criminal branch without mentioning the charge or section. According to Jaising, the crime branch staff had just notified the journalists that they were being called in for questioning as part of an initial investigation on an application from investor Yogeshbhai Mafatlal Bhansali, who had claimed the story was blatantly malevolent and fraudulent.

She informed the court that neither Section 41A CrPC (a police officer summoning a person to appear before him or her) nor Section 160 CrPc (summoning a witness) could be used by the Gujarat crime branch to issue any such summons.

Jaising said that the summons could not be issued by the Gujarat police under Section 41A since no official FIR had been filed in the matter, or under Section 160 because both journalists live in Delhi.

Therefore, Article 21—the basic right to life and personal liberty—is violated by these summonses. I have no business being in front of this policeman. These notifications have no legal power whatsoever, according to Jaising.

"There is no denying that the piece has been written. So why is it necessary for the petitioners to be present? In order to apprehend? This is just harassment, nothing more. There is fear that this is an arrest-related pretext.

The Adani group was accused of accounting fraud and stock manipulation by US short-seller Hindenburg Research; the conglomerate has refuted these claims.

On August 31, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a worldwide network of investigative journalists, released a piece written by Nair and Mangnale.

A summons was issued on October 16 to Nair and on October 25 to Mangnale.

The journalists have argued that their co-authored story, "Documents provide fresh insight into allegations of stock manipulation that rocked India's powerful Adani group," was published in the public interest in their case, which they filed via counsel Paras Nath Singh.

They said that the paper was based on records that the OCCRP had acquired after extensive investigation.

The petitioners said that before publishing the piece, they had contacted the Adani group to get their reaction and had done their full diligence in reviewing the papers in accordance with accepted journalistic practices.

They claimed that several foreign publications had also published stories along the same lines as theirs, including the Financial Times and The Guardian of Britain.

The petitioners said that, even in the unlikely event that a case was established based on the article, it would likely fall under the defamation statute, which does not involve the police.

A court alone has the authority to call someone in a defamation action based only on a private complaint.

The petitioners claimed that material in the public domain indicated that market regulator Sebi had banned the complainant Bhansali, as well as several members of his family and acquaintances, from purchasing, disposing of, or engaging in financial market trading for a period of three years in 2009.

The petitioners said that the summonses infringed their right to remain silent and endangered their freedom of expression, both of which were purportedly sought by the state.