The Wire on Saturday rubbished claims that they had offered to apologise to Jay Shah, son of Home Minister, Amit Shah in the Supreme Court in a criminal defamation case filed against the news website. The viral claim also falsely stated that The Wire had lost the case, when in fact, the trial is yet to even begin the Gujarat court.
Jay Shah had alleged that he had been defamed by a news report in The Wire on his business affairs and had filed a criminal defamation case as well as a civil defamation case seeking Rs 100 crore in damages against the news website in October 2017.
BOOM spoke to The Wire's founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan who rubbished the claim stating that the trial for the case has not even begun in the trial court.
Several prominent Twitter handles including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Member of Parliament Hari Om Pandey falsely tweeted that the media organisation had offered an apology to Shah after losing the case.
The tweet when translated from the handle name '@ThePushpendra_' from Hindi reads, "The Wire has offered to apologise in the Supreme Court after losing the case for falsely accusing Amit Shah's son."
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(In Hindi - अमित शाह जी के बेटे पर झूठा आरोप लगाने पर "The Wire" ने केस हारने के बाद SC में माफीनामे की पेशकश की है)
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Viral on Twitter
On searching with the same caption on Twitter, we found that the false claim is viral
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM reached out to Siddharth Varadarajan, The Wire's founding editor, who dismissed the claims stating, "It is complete rubbish, the trial has not even started, I don't know why and on what basis they have fabricated this, but the element of truth is zero percent."
"Both the civil defamation and criminal defamation cases are with the trial court and we are waiting for the dates, there has been no forward movement for the last year and a half," added Varadarajan.
The Wire had moved the Supreme Court in January 2018, after the Gujarat high court refused to accept its plea that the criminal defamation case be quashed that were filed by Jay Shah. The defamation case filed by Shah had referred to the 2017 wire report that revenues of Jay Shah's company had grown massively the year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.
In August 2019, The Wire has told the Supreme Court that it is withdrawing its two petitions for the quashing of cases against the website and its editors by Shah stating that it would defend itself in the trial court in Gujarat. Both matters had been stayed by the Supreme Court till then which had asked the Gujarat trial court not to proceed.
Journalist Rohini Singh, the author of the report on which Shah had filed a case, quote tweeted the Twitter handle '@ThePushpendra_' rubbishing the claim and saying that the trial has not begun in the court.
The tweet when translated reads, "Along with journalism, you have left 'facts and truth' far away. The trial in the trial court has not even started and you have already given a verdict. Now with the help of WhatsApp University bhakts will spread this lie. Yesterday, with WhatsApp going down, the worst impact was on bhakts."
We also looked for credible news reports and did not find any recent updates on the Jay Shah case as being claimed.
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