How OpIndia got caught spreading misinformation about LiveLaw

A story on a “Christian conversion racket”, another on Washington Post’s “collusion” with Canada, and restaurants “deceiving customers” over paneer.

So far, so normal – it’s just another day on OpIndia’s website. 

But nestled amongst these thoughtful thinkpieces today was a “report” categorised as a “fact-check”, with the headline “MA Rashid’s LiveLaw spreads fake news about Sharjeel Imam hearing in SC, drags Justice Bela Trivedi in the case when she has nothing to do with it: Details”. 

The piece was written by none other than Nupur Sharma, editor in chief of OpIndia. It said a tweet by LiveLaw on October 22 was “misleading” and done to create a “narrative” against a public judge – a “norm in the Left-Islamist circle”.

Here’s the tweet. It was on Sharjeel Imam’s petition in the Delhi riots case being listed before Justices Bela Trivedi and SC Sharma in the Supreme Court on October 22.

Now, Sharma offered a plethora of screenshots to prove her point. Sadly, soon after, LiveLaw’s managing editor Manu Sebastian countered with a detailed response in which he said Sharma’s piece was “malicious, factually wrong, and a blatant misrepresentation of the court proceedings”. 

“Either OpIndia and its editors are completely clueless, or they are trying to deliberately twist the facts to mislead people,” Sebastian told Newslaundry. “This is a matter of publicly verifiable information that the matter was listed, so it seems like this was not an innocent mistake. It’s ridiculous as they have completely twisted the facts.”

He’s now demanded a public apology and the withdrawal of the “report”, “failing which appropriate legal remedies will be availed”.

But what did OpIndia say?

Sharma wrote that there “was indeed” a Supreme Court hearing involving Sharjeel Imam but it “was not a bail hearing” and it “was not pertaining to the Delhi Riots larger conspiracy case”. She said she “checked the Supreme Court listings” and “searched the case by diary number” to find that Imam’s case was listed in front of a bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar – not Justices Trivedi and Sharma.

But as Sebastian tweeted, there were two petitions by Sharjeel Imam listed in the Supreme Court that day. The first, which OpIndia cited, was to consolidate FIRs against him. The second, which OpIndia said LiveLaw had waffled about, was before Justice Trivedi seeking directions for an expeditious hearing of his bail plea in the Delhi High Court in connection with the riots case.

Yet OpIndia merrily claimed that LiveLaw deliberately set out to “give the impression that a regular bail hearing was delayed by the Supreme Court so that a narrative can be created in favour of Sharjeel Imam and against Justice Bela Trivedi”.

Sebastian pointed out to Newslaundry that OpIndia chose to be “selective about truth”. He also pointed out that the story’s headline described the legal news website as “MA Rashid’s LiveLaw”, ignoring the portal’s other founder.

Why did he choose to respond?

“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.”

Meanwhile, OpIndia also added Sebastian’s response to its piece but said he “misrepresented facts yet again” even though it admitted Sebastian was “right that there was indeed 1 petition listed in front of Justice Bela Trivedi – a fact that OpIndia missed because it was not an ongoing case and LiveLaw had no report on its website indicating the same”.

It accused Sebastian of missing out “critical information” by not explaining that Imam had moved a “FRESH petition” – emphasis not ours.

The headline of the piece was also changed to “MA Rashid’s LiveLaw misrepresents Sharjeel Imam hearing in SC, Managing Editor tries to defend error, misrepresents facts again”.

When we asked Sebastian about this tirade, he dismissed it as an “eyewash”.

“My head started spinning reading this response,” he told Newslaundry. “We can only mention facts, which we did, about the matter being listed. We can’t predict whether or not it will be taken up.”

Newslaundry reached out to Sharma for response. This report will be updated if we receive one.

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