orderAhmedabad, Dec 23 (PTI) A court here today partly liftedits gag order against news portal "The Wire", allowing it topublish articles on the business of Jay Shah, the son of BJPchief Amit Shah, but said it should not link the subjectmatter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Additional Senior Civil Judge B K Dasondi also stayed theoperation of his order for two weeks, so that Jay Shah, whohad filed a civil defamation suit against "The Wire", couldmove a higher court against it.
"The Wire" had moved the court against its injunctionthat it should not publish anything about Jay Shah's businessuntil the suit was disposed off.
The court today said the news portal could publisharticles regarding Jay Shah's business, but it would not haveany reference to the prime minister, as the original articlein question could not justify linking the rise in Shah'scompany's turnover to Modi becoming prime minister.
The article, titled 'The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah',had said the turnover of a company owned by Jay Shah -- TempleEnterprise Pvt Ltd -- "increased 16,000 times over in the yearfollowing the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister".
Calling it slanderous, Jay Shah had filed both a civildefamation suit as well as a criminal defamation complaintagainst the portal.
The civil court had, earlier, issued an injunction,prohibiting "The Wire" from "publishing, broadcasting orprinting" anything on the basis of the article till the suitwas disposed off. The news portal had challenged it before thehigh court, which had asked the lower court to hear the matterand pass an order within 30 days.
"The Wire" had argued against the gag order, saying ifthe author of the article could justify her contention sayingit was true and based on public record, the court could notissue such an injunction, whatever the final outcome of thecase might be.
The court accepted this argument, but said there was nojustification regarding the reference to Modi in the article.
Jay Shah sought a month's time to move a higher courtagainst today's order, but the court stayed the order for onlytwo weeks.
Shah has filed a Rs 100-crore civil defamation suitagainst Rohini Singh, the author of the article, five editorsof "The Wire" and its publisher, Foundation for IndependentJournalism. PTI KA PD KRKRC.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.