On the afternoon of August 17, 2026, officers from the Gujarat police performed parallel searches at two properties of journalist Ravi Nair in Kerala and Delhi. They seized two of Ravi’s cell phones from his residence in Kerala. At Ravi’s Delhi residence, legislation enforcement officers took his son’s laptop computer, in addition to the laptop computer and iPad of a colleague who was current there.
Neither his son nor the colleague are accused within the case.
These seizures are in reference to a police case in opposition to Ravi for a tweet he posted on X. Ravi’s tweet was a couple of story he co-reported on the Adani Group, which was revealed by in October 2025. The story alleged that Indian officers had drafted and pushed by way of a proposal in Could that yr to steer about $3.9 billion in investments to Adani’s companies from the state-owned Life Insurance coverage Company of India (LIC). The investigation was based mostly on inner paperwork from the LIC, the Indian Division of Monetary Companies, interviews with present and former officers at these companies, in addition to three Indian bankers aware of Adani Group funds.
On April 22, an worker of the Adani Ports and Particular Financial Zone Restricted (APSEZ) in Ahmedabad filed a defamation grievance in opposition to Ravi’s tweet. A number of months later, the identical staffer filed a second grievance, based mostly on which the Gujarat police officers then filed a First Info Report (FIR), invoking sections associated to dishonest and forgery of paperwork.
In the meantime, Ravi approached the Gujarat Excessive Court docket. Ravi’s plea was that “mere denial by the LIC of the experiences revealed by the petitioner within the Washington Submit, wouldn’t make the petitioner chargeable for the offence alleged in opposition to him within the FIR and in addition mere denial of the info narrated within the Article by the LIC, wouldn’t make the paperwork, based mostly upon which, the article was revealed by the petitioner within the Washington Submit, cast, and due to this fact, the petitioner herein can’t be prosecuted for the offence in query.”
In the course of the hearings for this case, legal professionals representing the Adani Group worker in addition to these representing the state of Gujarat forged aspersions on The Washington Submit investigation. They claimed that the paperwork this report was based mostly on may have been cast.
In an order dated August 11, the Gujarat Excessive Court docket dismissed Ravi’s petition to quash the FIR in opposition to him. The courtroom held that the defamation grievance and the FIR, which associated to allegations of doc forgery, have been totally different. And so, it added, the investigating company on this case wanted to find out whether or not or not the paperwork that The Washington Submit story relied on have been genuine.
The raids at Ravi’s residences in Kerala and Delhi befell days after this ruling. The Gujarat police officers refused to offer the hash values of the seized units in each Kerala and Delhi. A hash worth is a numeric worth that identifies information uniquely. Because of this if the info on a tool is tampered with after it’s seized, the hash worth of that machine will change. The police’s refusal to share this worth goes in opposition to the rules the Supreme Court docket in 2023, whereas it was listening to a petition filed by the Basis of Media Professionals.
The raid befell hours after the Further Chief Judicial Justice of the Peace courtroom in Ahmedabad authorised police officers to look Ravi’s homes on August 17. It did so in response to an software filed by the Investigating Officer on this case. The appliance argued that essential incriminating proof, important paperwork, and digital units related to the case have been saved at Ravi’s residences.
Gujarat police officers reached Ravi’s Kerala and Delhi residences at across the identical time, about 2 pm. The search lasted about 4 hours at each properties. In Kerala, the cops seized Ravi’s outdated and unused telephones alongside together with his pendrives. In Delhi, officers seized Ravi’s son’s laptop computer, in addition to the laptop computer and iPad of his colleague Sachi Hedge, who was at Ravi’s Delhi residence on the time.
