NEW DELHI: In a major relief to Zee TV news anchor Rohit Ranjan, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered the authorities not to take any coercive steps against him in the multiple FIRs lodged against him for airing an alleged doctored video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
The news video had alleged that Rahul Gandhi had said that the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal Teji in Udaipur should be condoned. Gandhi was, in fact, referring to those who had vandalised his office in Wayanad, Kerala, and not to the Udaipur killers. The channel had later published an apology.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Rohit Ranjan, told the apex court that multiple FIRs had been lodged against the TV anchor stemming from the same cause of action, which was not permissible.
Ranjan has prayed for various reliefs, including quashing of the FIRs filed against him or clubbing them together for a single trial. The FIRs in multiple States had been filed with a pre-determined and pre-motivated objective to cause undue harassment to the anchor and channel, it was contended.
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It was argued that the channel had received the doctored video from a third-party agency, which was handled by a trainee producer. The show based on the same had factual inaccuracies. When the channel realised the same, it retracted the show and expressed regret on air.
Luthra had sought urgent hearing from the Supreme Court on Wednesday, noting that the news anchor was arrested and released on bail on Tuesday but now the Chhattisgarh police wanted to arrest him. He sought relief as otherwise Ranjan will be in repeated custodies due to the multiple FIRs.
The lawyer told the court that Ranjan has already apologized for a mistake in a show he runs on the TV channel. Ranjan on his show said, “In our show DNA, Rahul Gandhi’s statement was put in the wrong context by linking it to the Udaipur incident, it was a human error for which our team apologises.”
The Congress has alleged in the FIRs that Ranjan was running the doctored video in an attempt to incite public sentiment.
The vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari also issued notice to the Central government.
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