The Editors Guild of India today condemned the Andhra Pradesh government’s order empowering top bureaucrats to file defamation cases against journalists and media houses for “defamatory, baseless and false” reports.

In a statement, the guild noted that “such blanket powers to top civil servants…will be prone to misuse and their rampant application will do grievous damage to the freedoms of the media”.

The guild urged the government to withdraw the order.