Significant controversy has erupted between LiveLaw – a news tracking website on legal matters and OpIndia – a right-wing news portal, over allegations of misinformation on court proceedings related to student activist Sharjeel Imam.
The dispute was ignited when OpIndia made a post accusing LiveLaw of distorting facts about the listing of Imam’s case in the Supreme Court which they showed fabrication and part of a campaign against Justice Bela Trivedi.
OpIndia vs LiveLaw: Where it began
The controversy began Tuesday, October 22, when LiveLaw reported that Sharjeel Imam’s petition on bail in the Delhi riots conspiracy case was listed before Justice Bela Trivedi and SC Sharma. OpIndia refuted this report claiming that the case was before Justice Khanna alone and that LiveLaw was merely trying to deceive the public about the ongoing legal proceedings.
The article was written by its editor Nupur Sharma who termed LiveLaw’s coverage as “misleading” and accused it of pushing Justice Trivedi into a role she never played. Sharma further claimed the Live Law attempts to create a “narrative” against the public judge – a “norm in the Left-Islamist circle”.
Sharma explained, “There was indeed a hearing in the Supreme Court in an ongoing case involving Sharjeel Imam, however, it was not a bail hearing, it was not about the delay in High Court, it was not pertaining to the Delhi Riots larger conspiracy case. We checked the Supreme Court listings to understand what ongoing case was being heard in the Supreme Court of India pertaining to Sharjeel Imam” (sic).
LiveLaw’s counter-claims
However, LiveLaw’s managing editor Manu Sebastian vehemently stood by their report stating that there were indeed two separate petitions for Imam listed before two different justices on the same day. He stressed that one petition was correctly listed before Justice Trivedi, which sought directions for an expedited hearing of Imam’s bail plea.
In a series of posts on X, Sebastian accused OpIndia of spinning the narrative without checking documents properly and pointed out their “malicious” reporting.
In one post, Sebastian wrote that “OpIndia @OpIndia_com has published an article written by its Chief Editor Nupur Sharma @UnSubtleDesi targeting LiveLaw @LiveLawIndia. The article is malicious, factually wrong & a blatant misrepresentation of the court proceedings, which can amount to contempt of court. Thread.”
In the second post, Sebastian clarified that there were two petitions by Sharjeel Imam that were mentioned in the Supreme Court that day. “The first one mentioned by OpIndia was to consolidate FIRs against him. The second, which OpIndia accused LiveLaw of flip-flopping over, was a petition that was moved before Justice Trivedi for an early hearing of his bail matter in Delhi High Court in the riots case”.
While talking to Newslaundry, Sebastian pointed out that OpIndia chose to be “selective about truth”.
“This is not the first time OpIndia has targeted LiveLaw,” Sebastian said, “But I felt the need to issue a clarification as it was a serious allegation, saying we reported on something that did not happen. Anyone could verify this by doing Ctrl+F on the Supreme Court document. This is ridiculous and laughable,” Sebastian told Newslaundry.
Legal implications
The exchange intensified when LiveLaw demanded OpIndia to either withdraw the said statements or face legal proceedings against them. Sebastian described OpIndia’s claims as slanderous and full of inaccuracies and opined that there may be contempt of court because of the distortion of legal proceedings. He called for the retraction of the OpIndia article and stated that if this is not done, he will initiate appropriate legal actions.
Despite updating their report to include some of the clarifications provided by LiveLaw, OpIndia continued to stand its ground, insisting that LiveLaw had left out a lot of crucial details concerning the type of petitions Imam had filed. They argued that based on the narrative that LiveLaw was creating, Justice Trivedi could be portrayed as someone who was delaying the progress of legal proceedings.
It is pertinent to mention here that, Sharjeel Imam, a native of Bihar has been consistently denied bail for his alleged “seditious and inflammatory” speeches made at Aligarh Muslim University on January 16 2020. The Delhi High Court has repeatedly refused to grant him bail, citing the serious nature of the allegations against him.
OpIndia
This is not the first time OpIndia has been accused of spreading misinformation. In one notable incident that occurred in 2023, the Avadi police in Tamil Nadu booked the CEO of OpIndia.com, Rahul Roushan and Nupur Sharma for spreading fear among the migrant workers in the state by publishing fake news claiming “Hindi-speaking migrant labourers were killed and attacked in the state”.
Founded in 2014, OpIndia is often described as a far-right news platform that frequently publishes misinformation and pushes narratives favourable to the BJP.
In 2019, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) rejected OpIndia’s application to be certified as a fact-checker. IFCN-certified fact checkers identified 25 fake news stories and 14 misreported stories published by OpIndia from January 2018 to June 2020.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Sayima Ahmad | 
