New Delhi: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Thursday, July 7, the plea of a TV news anchor facing several FIRs in some states for playing a doctored clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, seeking protection from coercive action for the alleged offence.
“List it tomorrow,” a vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J.K. Maheswari said when senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for anchor Rohit Ranjan, sought an urgent listing. Luthra said multiple FIRs had been registered against Ranjan.
“Please list this urgently since otherwise he will be in repeated custody,” Luthra told the Supreme Court.
LiveLaw has reported that after the bench passed the order for listing tomorrow, Luthra said that the petition itself was yet to be filed. “We should have been told that the matter has not been filed. This is no ground. This court is going to take a very strong view. As AOR you should have instructed your counsel,” Justice Banerjee told Luthra, who then apologised.
On July 5, a police team from Chhattisgarh reached Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad town to arrest Ranjan from his house. Scenes of high drama unfolded and Ranjan was ultimately detained by Uttar Pradesh Police, who thus prevented his arrest by Chhattisgarh police.
Uttar Pradesh police released Ranjan on bail later. A police officer was quoted by news agency PTI as having said that Ranjan was taken into custody for questioning in a case lodged by Ranjan’s channel.
“Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan was picked up from his home for questioning on Tuesday morning by a team from Noida Sector-20 police station in connection with an FIR lodged under IPC 505 (public mischief) on a complaint by his own channel over a doctored video played during his show on July 1,” a Noida police officer told PTI.
PTI has not revealed details of this FIR and why Zee News filed a complaint with Noida Police.
In Raipur, Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal told PTI that a case was registered against Ranjan and others at Zee News on Sunday, July 3, for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups and outraging religious feelings of people based on a complaint by Congress MLA Devendra Yadav.
The FIR in Raipur was lodged under IPC sections including 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 467 (forgery), 469 (forgery to harm reputation), 504 (intentional insult).
Ranjan’s show had aired a statement made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the aftermath of violence purportedly by the Students’ Federation of India on his Wayanad office. The video allegedly made it seem like Gandhi made a comment on the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur.
The channel issued an apology the next day, with Ranjan saying, “Yesterday, in our show DNA, Rahul Gandhi’s statement was taken in the wrong context by linking it to the Udaipur incident, it was a human error for which our team apologises.”
(With PTI inputs)