The two posts stay up, but Mahesh Jethmalani will not retweet them. In the Indian Express Defamation Suit, the Bombay High Court has declined ad-interim relief, saying the pleas of justification need a detailed hearing, and has recorded his undertaking not to retweet the two posts in question.
Mumbai: Two posts on X that The Indian Express says are defamatory will not be taken down for now, with the Bombay High Court on Monday declining to order Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani to remove them because the newspaper’s plea for immediate removal would require a detailed hearing [The Indian Express Pvt Ltd v. Mahesh Jethmalani & Ors.].
Justice Arif Doctor passed the order on November 2, 2026 and listed the interim application for further hearing on November 27.
Why the Court held back
Justice Arif Doctor said the takedown plea could not be decided at the ad-interim stage:
“In my view, since this would entail a detailed hearing, which would require the court to go into pleas of justification, etc., it would not be appropriate at this stage to consider the same. I will consider this when I hear this interim application for detail on reopening.”
What the Court did record was a limited undertaking:
“The defendant (Jethmalani) would not be retweeting the two allegedly offending tweets. In my view, this would be sufficient at the ad-interim stage.”
What the suit says about the posts
The suit is built on two posts from Jethmalani’s X handle. According to the suit, they accused The Indian Express of political bias in favour of the Congress party and of compromising its editorial independence, criticised its reporting on the Election Commission of India, and alleged financial links between the Congress and the newspaper group, citing election expenditure filings that showed advertisement payments by the party during state assembly polls.
The newspaper disputes those claims, and Jethmalani defends them as fair comment. None of the allegations has been tested by the Court.
Pressing for removal
Appearing for The Indian Express, Senior Advocate Dinyar Madon asked for immediate removal, stressing that digital content does not fade the way print does. A defence of justification, he argued, cannot rest on a bare promise to justify the statements at trial, and a media company can maintain a defamation action when its business integrity is attacked.
Commentary, not defamation
For Jethmalani, Senior Advocate Zal Andhyarujina argued that the posts were political commentary and fair comment on the newspaper’s editorial leanings. He also questioned whether the suit was maintainable at all.
A suggestion to talk it out
Noting that the newspaper was aggrieved only by certain portions of the posts, the judge suggested that the parties try to resolve the dispute between themselves, remarking that Jethmalani was spending a great deal of his “precious and valuable time” reading and commenting on the newspaper and had “so many better things to do”.
Why the order matters
Courts move carefully before directing the removal of speech at the very start of a defamation case. Where the defendant pleads justification or fair comment, a pre-trial takedown amounts to deciding the truth of the statements before evidence is weighed, so a full hearing is generally preferred first.
The recorded undertaking also shows the middle path often taken at the ad-interim stage: the posts stay up, but their further spread by the author is checked until the interim application is heard. The Court has expressed no view on whether the posts are defamatory.
Case Title: The Indian Express Pvt Ltd v. Mahesh Jethmalani & Ors.
Bench: Justice Arif Doctor, Bombay High Court
Date of Order: November 2, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocate Dinyar Madon with Advocates Ziyad Madon, Pranit Kulkarni and Tejasvi Ghag, instructed by Poorvi Kamani, for The Indian Express Pvt Ltd; Senior Advocate Zal Andhyarujina with Advocates Serena Jethmalani, Revati Desai, Apurva Diwanji, Anoj Menon and Nimisha Shukla, instructed by Desai & Diwanji Associates, for Mahesh Jethmalani