Introduction:

The Gujarat High Court has declined to interfere with an FIR registered against journalist Ravi Nair in connection with documents relied upon in a newspaper article concerning alleged investments by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the Adani Group. In Ravi Nair v. State of Gujarat and Another, R/SCR.A/9270/2026, Justice M. R. Mengdey held that the mere pendency of a private complaint alleging defamation on substantially similar facts does not prevent the registration or investigation of an FIR concerning distinct cognizable offences.

The case arose from an article published by Ravi Nair in The Washington Post on October 24, 2025. The article reportedly alleged that LIC had invested approximately USD 3.9 billion in the Adani Group and that such investment had been made pursuant to directions or influence from the Central Government. In support of the article, Nair relied upon certain documents purportedly originating from LIC and the Department of Financial Services.

Following publication of the article, questions were raised regarding the authenticity of the documents. LIC subsequently stated through its social media account that the documents referred to in the article had neither been issued nor received by it. LIC also denied that its investments had been made under any external influence. The Department of Financial Services similarly communicated that the documents relied upon in the article had not been prepared by it.

The dispute consequently moved beyond the question of whether the article was defamatory. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited lodged a private complaint alleging defamation. Thereafter, an FIR was registered alleging offences under Sections 318(4), 336(2), 336(4) and 340(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The allegations included cheating, forgery and using a forged document or electronic record as genuine.

The registration of the FIR prompted Ravi Nair to approach the High Court seeking its quashing. His principal contention was that the criminal proceedings constituted an abuse of the process of law because a private complaint concerning the same article and factual circumstances was already pending. According to him, the authorities were attempting to give a criminal colour to a dispute that was essentially one of defamation.

The petitioner also questioned the allegation that the documents were forged. He argued that merely because LIC or the Department of Financial Services denied having issued the documents, such documents could not automatically be treated as forged. According to him, the authenticity of the documents was itself a disputed question of fact which could not justify the extraordinary interference of criminal prosecution against him.

The High Court, however, drew a distinction between the allegations contained in the private complaint and those forming the basis of the FIR. While the private complaint concerned alleged defamation, the FIR alleged cognizable offences involving the creation and use of forged documents. The Court held that the existence of the defamation proceedings did not prevent the authorities from investigating an independent allegation of forgery.

An important aspect of the Court’s reasoning was that the authenticity of the documents remained disputed. Since LIC and the Department of Financial Services had denied their existence or issuance, the Court considered it necessary for the investigating agency to determine how and from where the documents originated and whether they were genuine.

The Court therefore refused to conduct a mini-trial at the stage of considering the petition for quashing. Instead, it held that the truth regarding the disputed documents was a matter for investigation.

The decision illustrates the limited scope of judicial interference with an FIR at the threshold of a criminal investigation. It also highlights the distinction between multiple criminal proceedings arising from the same factual background and the impermissible duplication of proceedings for the same offence.

Arguments of the Parties:

On behalf of Ravi Nair, it was argued that the FIR should be quashed because its registration was an abuse of the criminal process. The petitioner contended that the entire controversy originated from the article published in The Washington Post and that Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd. had already approached the competent court by filing a private complaint alleging defamation.

According to the petitioner, the factual foundation of the private complaint and the FIR was substantially identical. Both proceedings arose from the same article, the same allegations concerning LIC’s investment in the Adani Group and the same documents relied upon by the journalist. In these circumstances, the petitioner argued that permitting a separate FIR would amount to subjecting him to parallel criminal proceedings concerning the same underlying dispute.

The petitioner further argued that the authorities had not properly investigated the matter before registering the FIR. He submitted that no preliminary inquiry had been ordered in relation to the allegations contained in the private complaint and suggested that the subsequent registration of the FIR was motivated by an intention to harass him.

A significant part of the petitioner’s argument concerned the alleged forged documents. Nair contended that the mere denial by LIC or the Department of Financial Services did not establish that the documents were forged. According to him, the documents could have been obtained from other sources or could have existed in circumstances unknown to the institutions that later denied issuing them.

He therefore maintained that there was insufficient material to invoke the serious offences relating to forgery. At the very least, he argued, the prosecution could not treat the documents as forged merely because the institutions whose names appeared on them denied their authenticity.

The petitioner also sought protection from what he described as an attempt to convert a dispute concerning journalistic reporting into a criminal prosecution. His argument essentially was that the criminal process should not be permitted to become a mechanism for intimidating or penalising a journalist merely because an article had caused controversy or adversely affected the reputation of a corporate entity.

The petitioner had earlier approached the Supreme Court in connection with the matter. He subsequently withdrew that proceeding with liberty to approach the High Court. The fact of the earlier Supreme Court proceedings also became a point of contention before the High Court.

On the other side, the prosecution opposed the request for quashing and maintained that the allegations relating to forgery required proper investigation. The State contended that the issue was not confined to the contents of the article or the alleged defamatory nature of the publication. The central question was whether the documents relied upon by the petitioner were genuine.

The prosecution pointed out that the alleged forgery could not be conclusively determined without investigating the source, preparation and circulation of the disputed documents. It was therefore argued that the investigating agency should be permitted to examine the matter in accordance with law.

The State also alleged that the petitioner was not cooperating with the investigation. This submission was relied upon to demonstrate that the investigation had not yet reached a stage where the High Court could appropriately conclude that the allegations were false or legally unsustainable.

Senior Advocate N.D. Nanavaty, appearing for Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd., also opposed the petition. The company’s case was that the existence of a private complaint alleging defamation did not prevent it or the authorities from pursuing other legally distinct offences arising from the same set of events.

It was submitted that defamation was not an offence for which an FIR could simply be registered in the manner contemplated for cognizable offences. Consequently, the company had resorted to a private complaint in relation to defamation. That, however, did not mean that other cognizable offences disclosed by the same factual circumstances could not be investigated through an FIR.

The respondents therefore distinguished between the nature of the two proceedings. The private complaint concerned the alleged injury to reputation caused by publication, whereas the FIR concerned alleged criminal conduct involving forged documents and their use as genuine.

The respondents also pointed to the petitioner’s conduct before the High Court. It was argued that he had failed to disclose that he had previously approached the Supreme Court and had subsequently withdrawn the proceedings. According to the respondents, such suppression was relevant while considering whether the petitioner deserved discretionary relief under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction.

The respondents thus urged the Court not to interfere with the investigation at its initial stage. They maintained that questions regarding the authenticity of documents, their source and the circumstances in which they came into the petitioner’s possession were factual matters requiring investigation and could not be conclusively determined in a petition seeking quashing of the FIR.

The rival submissions therefore presented two competing approaches. The petitioner sought to characterise the criminal proceedings as an extension of a defamation dispute and an abuse of process, while the respondents maintained that the forgery allegations constituted a separate and independently cognizable matter requiring investigation.

Court’s Judgment:

Justice M. R. Mengdey declined to quash the FIR and dismissed the petition filed by Ravi Nair. The Court’s principal reasoning was that the allegations contained in the private complaint and those forming the basis of the FIR, although arising from the same general factual background, were legally distinct.

The Court acknowledged that the article and the circumstances surrounding its publication formed the factual foundation of both proceedings. However, similarity of facts does not automatically mean that different legal offences become identical.

The private complaint filed by Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd. alleged defamation. The FIR, on the other hand, alleged offences including cheating, forgery and the use of forged documents or electronic records as genuine. These offences contain different ingredients and require different factual inquiries.

The Court therefore rejected the petitioner’s argument that the existence of the defamation complaint, by itself, made the FIR an abuse of the process of law.

The Court observed, in substance, that the complainant’s decision to initiate proceedings concerning defamation could not prevent the authorities from taking recourse to law if the same factual circumstances disclosed an independent cognizable offence. The legal system does not require a complainant to choose one possible offence to the exclusion of all other offences that may subsequently be disclosed from the same transaction.

This aspect of the ruling is particularly important in criminal jurisprudence. A single factual episode may potentially give rise to several legal consequences. For example, conduct that damages reputation may simultaneously involve the creation or use of a forged document. The fact that one remedy or proceeding has already been initiated does not necessarily extinguish the State’s power to investigate another cognizable offence.

The Court consequently focused on whether the FIR, on its face, disclosed ingredients of cognizable offences. It found that the allegations concerning the disputed documents were sufficient, at the threshold stage, to justify investigation.

A crucial factor was the position taken by LIC and the Department of Financial Services regarding the documents. Both institutions had disputed the existence or issuance of the documents relied upon in the article. The Court noted that this placed the authenticity of the documents “under the clouds”.

The Court observed that the documents prima facie appeared to require investigation to determine whether they were forged. However, the Court did not itself finally declare the documents to be forged. Instead, it recognised that determining their authenticity was precisely the task of the investigating agency.

This distinction is fundamental. At the stage of considering a petition for quashing an FIR, the High Court is not ordinarily expected to conduct a detailed examination of disputed evidence or determine the truthfulness of competing factual versions. Where the allegations disclose a cognizable offence and require factual investigation, courts generally permit the investigation to proceed unless the case falls within established categories warranting quashing.

The Court therefore refused to accept the petitioner’s submission that the documents could not be treated as forged merely because LIC had denied their issuance. Whether the documents were genuine, forged, fabricated or obtained from some other source was a factual question requiring investigation.

The Court’s reasoning effectively recognised that the denial by the institutions did not conclusively establish forgery, but it did provide sufficient grounds for investigation into the authenticity of the documents. The investigation would have to establish the truth.

This approach prevented the Court from prematurely deciding an issue that remained under investigation. If the documents were genuine, the investigation would reveal the circumstances in which they were created or obtained. If they were forged, the investigating agency would have to determine who created them, how they were obtained and whether they were knowingly used as genuine.

The Court also considered the argument that the FIR had been registered to harass the petitioner because of the pending defamation complaint. It did not find sufficient grounds at this stage to accept that contention.

The mere existence of another proceeding based on the same article was not enough to establish mala fides or abuse of process. The Court was required to examine the substance of the allegations in the FIR rather than simply the chronology of the proceedings.

The judgment thereby reinforces the principle that the High Court’s power to quash criminal proceedings is extraordinary and must be exercised cautiously. The power is designed to prevent abuse of the judicial process and secure the ends of justice, but it cannot ordinarily be used to prevent a legitimate investigation into allegations that disclose cognizable offences.

The Court’s approach also reflects the distinction between the investigation stage and the trial stage. At the investigation stage, the authorities are tasked with discovering whether an offence has actually been committed and collecting relevant evidence. The accused is not entitled to demand that the High Court conclusively determine disputed questions of fact before the investigation can take place.

In the present case, the disputed documents were central to the allegations. Their authenticity could potentially determine whether the alleged offences of forgery and use of forged documents were made out. Consequently, investigation into the documents was not merely permissible but necessary.

The Court also took note of the submission that the petitioner was not cooperating with the investigation. While this did not independently determine the outcome, it formed part of the respondents’ case that the investigation had not yet been completed and that factual issues remained unresolved.

The Court further considered the allegation that the petitioner had failed to disclose his earlier approach to the Supreme Court. The respondents contended that such non-disclosure amounted to suppression of a material fact. Although the Court’s ultimate decision rested primarily on the distinction between the allegations in the FIR and the private complaint, the submission added to the respondents’ opposition to the discretionary relief sought by the petitioner.

Another important aspect of the decision is the Court’s treatment of the journalist’s status. The fact that the petitioner was a journalist did not, by itself, place him beyond the reach of ordinary criminal investigation. At the same time, the Court did not adjudicate upon the truthfulness of the article or hold that the journalistic publication itself constituted a criminal offence.

The Court’s ruling was narrower. It concerned whether the FIR alleging forgery and related offences should be quashed at the threshold. The answer was no because the allegations raised factual questions that required investigation.

This distinction is particularly relevant to cases involving investigative journalism and disputed documents. Journalists may rely on documents obtained from confidential sources, leaked records or other materials while reporting on matters of public interest. Whether such reliance is protected, justified or ultimately criminal in a particular case depends upon the facts and the applicable law.

Where the State alleges that the underlying documents themselves were fabricated, the existence and authenticity of those documents may become an independent subject of investigation. A court considering quashing cannot ordinarily determine such factual questions conclusively merely on the basis of competing assertions.

The Court therefore held that the investigation should be allowed to establish the truth concerning the disputed documents.

The decision also clarifies that a private complaint and an FIR are not necessarily mutually exclusive simply because they arise from the same broad transaction. What matters is whether the offences alleged are legally distinct and whether the subsequent proceeding amounts to impermissible duplication or instead concerns a separate cognizable offence.

Here, the Court found that the allegations in the FIR were “altogether different” from those contained in the defamation complaint. The private complaint was concerned with the alleged defamatory publication, whereas the FIR focused upon alleged forgery, cheating and the use of forged documents.

The Court consequently concluded that the private complaint did not preclude the authorities from investigating the other alleged offences.

The judgment also underscores the importance of allowing investigating agencies to perform their statutory functions. Courts exercising inherent jurisdiction should not ordinarily interfere where the allegations disclose a cognizable offence and the factual issues are yet to be investigated.

At the same time, the decision should not be understood as a finding that Ravi Nair committed forgery. The High Court did not determine his guilt, nor did it conclusively pronounce that the documents were forged. The Court only held that there was sufficient basis for the investigating agency to investigate their authenticity.

The presumption of innocence therefore remains applicable, and the allegations must ultimately be established in accordance with law. The investigation must determine whether the disputed documents were genuine and, if not, who created or used them and with what knowledge or intention.

The ruling consequently strikes a distinction between the protection against abusive criminal proceedings and the legitimate investigation of cognizable offences. The existence of a related civil or criminal proceeding does not automatically immunise a person from investigation into another offence arising from the same transaction.

Ultimately, the Gujarat High Court dismissed the petition seeking quashing of the FIR. It hel that the allegations concerning the disputed documents warran