Sameeksha Trust, which publishes the Economic and Political Weekly, clarified today that it took down an article related to a business house from its website as it "failed" to meet the standards of the journal and also did not go through its editorial review process.
In a statement, the trust asserted it will continue to critique all manner of policies and establishments of all political colours, like it has always done, while stressing that the instrument for criticism has to be evidence-based research and analysis or commentary.
The Adani group had served a legal notice on Sameeksha, former EPW editor Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and three co-authors of the article published on the journal's website on June 17, threatening legal action against them.
Subsequently Guha Thakurta resigned as editor.
The trust said Guha Thakurta had unilaterally initiated legal proceedings over the notice, without informing its members, a charge which the veteran journalist acknowledged, while claiming that the "full picture" was not being shared.
Seeking to address concerns over the journal's current standing and future, the office-bearers said, in their view, the article was riddled with allegations based on information from anonymous sources, often just a single unnamed source.
"Several assertions were unsubstantiated by evidence; and there were insinuations of impropriety against several persons, not backed by any firm evidence," it said, adding that when asked for supporting evidence, Guha Thakurta was "unwilling" to provide it.
The trust's decision to remove the article from the EPW website was criticised by many academics, including Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, and sections of the media fraternity, who said the decision was against the principles of free speech.
"It is important to give authors of investigative articles a fair chance to respond before deciding how to deal with a threat of legal action. In India today, where liberty and freedom of expression are severely under attack, courage with critical judgement must have a hugely important role," Sen and Angus Deaton, also a Nobel winner, had written in a letter to the Indian Express newspaper.
The EPW article in question claimed favours were given to the Adani Group by the Centre.
Guha Thakurta told PTI that Sameeksha's claim that he was unwilling to provide proof on the said article is "incorrect" as he was never asked to provide any supporting evidence.
"At the meeting on July 18, no one from the trust asked me to provide any supporting evidence. I asserted that I stood by every sentence that I published. I still stand by every single word. Nobody from the government of India has controverted or denied any thing that has been published till date," he claimed.
He said that what has been described as an "advice" to him by the trust to remove the article was interpreted by him as a direction or an instruction or an order as it had come when he was still the editor of the publication.
"I acceded to what the trustees wanted me to do, and very soon thereafter, on July 18, I put in my papers.
"Whereas the trustees had indeed pointed out that my predecessors wrote unsigned editorials and commentaries and did not publish signed articles, at no point of time was I categorically instructed that I could not write articles under my byline in the EPW," he said.
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