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Synopsis

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandrachud and Bopanna on Monday protected ZEE News producer Narinder Singh from arrest in connection with the FIRs registered against him pertaining to the misrepresented video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. 

The Bench, while issuing notice in the plea, directed the Registry to tag it with the plea filed by ZEE News anchor Rohit Ranjan. Ranjan was granted a similar relief by the court on July 8 and Editor Rajnish Ahuja on August 5.

The court, on hearing the submissions of the counsel that multiple FIRs have been filed in the same subject matter, directed that no coercive steps be taken against Singh on the basis of FIRs at Banipark, Jaipur (West), Raipur, and Noida. The court further held that no coercive steps can be taken against Singh in respect of all other FIRs which have been filed or which may be filed in future in respect of the same subject matter. 

Background:

It was mentioned in Rajnan's plea that Zee News received a video from a third-party agency namely ANI and the video was handled by Bikash Kumar Jha, who was working as a Trainee Producer, and Narinder Singh. According to the plea, relying upon the video prepared by the aforementioned individuals, a script was prepared for the Channel’s 9 pm show. It was stated that the contents of the show contained certain factual inaccuracies.

According to the plea, upon realizing the unintentional error, Zee News immediately retracted the news segment, apologized on-air and deleted all social media posts pertaining to the news segment.

Ranjan too apologized for the errors committed in the said show and expressed utmost regret on his prime-time show, DNA as well on his Twitter Handle. However, subsequently, multiple FIRs/ Complaints were filed against him under various provisions of law for the same incident, even though the error was unintentional and was almost immediately set right by Ranjan and Zee News. 

Case title: Narinder Singh Vs Union of India