Gensol threatens Boring Money with a court order

MYSTERY POST: Read up on Streisand, uncle

I usually paywall MYSTERY POSTS, but come on, this one warrants open access.

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Typically I’m quite excited to receive emails from readers. (Write to me! I respond to all emails.) Yesterday’s email was more exciting than usual. The lawyers of Gensol, a company I wrote about last month, sent me an email with a court order asking me to take down my post about the company.

Some screenshots:

The email had two documents attached. One was a court order from the Tis Hazari civil court in Delhi (uploaded here) and another a massive 300-page case information doc (here) where Gensol lays out its case for how everyone is defaming its founders (Puneet Singh Jaggi and Anmol Singh Jaggi) and must be restrained.

In its case info doc, Gensol has more than 46 URLs, which included those of established folks like Business Standard and Mint, as well as some Instagram and LinkedIn posts of content creators. Some of the links have been taken down, most are still up.

The civil court has, for the time being, and without evaluating what each of those articles actually says, given a blanket order to “remove the Defamatory Material including but not limited to that using the words 'scam, laundering funds, deception and financial misconduct' and/or other similar words/synonyms from their respective websites”.

Now I’m not going to get into what the court has done or evaluate whether it makes sense. India has a magnificent recent track record on freedom of expression, and this order is in line with that track record. All I want to write about is how much of this applies to Boring Money.

The superpower named Ashok Kumar

Even though Gensol’s lawyers wanted at least 46 links taken down, they had mentioned 10 “defendants” who were directly addressed. This list includes India Today, Zerodha, Fortune India and Financial Express, among others. However, there’s one curious defendant:

The defendant no.10 is Ashok Kumar, referred to as John Doe representing any other person whether natural or legal, who has been involved in spreading the defamatory content as alleged in the plaint. The identity or entity of this person is presently unknown or is impossible to sufficiently determining.

What? Who the hell is this Ashok Kumar? The court order doesn’t elaborate. But Gensol’s case information offers a clue:

While the Plaintiffs have made efforts to compile a list of defamatory publications, the sheer volume of such content is continuously growing, and it cannot be fully documented at this stage. In light of the extensive and ongoing nature of the defamatory reports, the Plaintiffs humbly submits that, in view of the voluminous reporting, they seeks liberty from this Hon’ble Court to produce all such articles and content as may be directed by the Court.

Gensol wants to use this anonymous Ashok Kumar to cover everyone. Me, you, your neighbour, your neighbour’s dog? If the Jaggi brothers don’t like what you’ve written, their lawyers will find your email address and accuse you of being Ashok Kumar.

Unfortunately the Delhi civil court doesn’t define, elaborate on or explain what it’s expecting to do with this Ashok Kumar. Unlike Gensol’s lawyers, I’m not going to interpret it as a superpower to take down any article on the internet. Instead, let’s go through some of the specifics of the court’s order and see if I need to revise my post on Gensol from last month.

It’s not a superpower.

Here’s what the court says the defendants including Ashok Kumar are restrained from doing:

distributing and/or circulating any incorrect reports about the Plaintiff including any report with sensational headline in violation of the norms and the capital of the Journalistic Conduct issued by the Press Council of India;

Gensol’s case info doc as well as the court’s order had a huge emphasis on “sensational headlines”. I actually have some sympathy here. News portals and content creators can sometimes go ballistic with headlines and thumbnails to get more views/clicks. But hey, I think Boring Money titles are always quite matter of fact. This was the headline of the Gensol post:

Gensol steals the money and public sector lenders hold the bag

Maybe the word “steal” made them upset. Okay, I’ll change it to—

Gensol “borrowed-money-didn’t-give-it-back” and public sector lenders hold the bag

Not quite as punchy but I think it’ll do.

Here is another important restraint by the court:

from making any further unverified, unsubstantiated, and ex-facie defamatory statements in any form, i.e., article, tweet, video, report, interview, etc. concerning the Plaintiff or repeating and republishing the Defamatory Material including but not limited to that using the words 'scam, laundering funds, deception and financial misconduct' and/or other similar words/ synonyms

In its case info doc, Gensol says that people asserted that the Jaggis ran a scam, laundered funds, deceived or indulged in financial misconduct. Their point was that even though SEBI did accuse them of it, their order was not final, and these were just things it found “prima facie” (on first impression). Technically, these could change and they didn’t deserve to be adjudged to be scamsters before SEBI did.

Fair! In my post I didn’t refer to the Jaggis as scamsters or claim they laundered funds. But I did use the word “fraud” in a couple of places. Here they are:

Gensol bought its electric cars from a company called Go Auto, and it was this company that enabled the Jaggis’ fraud.

[…]

Is it just me or is there something humorously ironic about using your regulatory affairs guy to defraud lenders?

Here’s an easy fix:

Gensol bought its electric cars from a company called Go Auto, and it was this company that enabled the Jaggis’ prima-facie fraud.

Is it just me or is there something humorously ironic about using your regulatory affairs guy to prima-facie defraud lenders?

Looks good!

BTW the court also added this:

… this order shall not have any bearing on the merits of the matter and shall not be construed to restrain any person from reporting about investigation and court proceedings in relation to the allegations so long as it is fair and accurate reporting based on duly substantiated, conclusive and verified material.

My post on Gensol draws from SEBI’s investigation and explains how public sector lenders are likely to face a loss due to Gensol and the Jaggis borrowing money and not paying it back. I’d hope that meets whatever bar the court has set.