Read Time: 04 minutes
The plea has been filed by news anchor Rohit Ranjan for quashing FIRs registered against him for telecasting a program in which a misrepresented video of Rahul Gandhi was shown.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea filed by ZEE News anchor Rohit Ranjan in connection with the FIRs registered against him pertaining to a misrepresented video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
A bench of the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Krishna Murari, and Justice Hima Kohli agreed to list the matter in the next week.
The matter was mentioned by Ranjan's counsel. Apart from quashing the FIRs, Ranjan has also sought clubbing of the multiple FIRs filed against him, and protection against coercive measures.
Earlier, the top court had restrained the authorities from taking Ranjan into custody.
According to the plea, multiple FIRs and complaints against Ranjan have been filed for telecasting a program namely “DNA” on Zee News on July 1, 2022. The contents of the program pertained to attacks by certain miscreants on the party office of a political party in Kerala.
It has been stated in the 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 has been stated that the contents of the show contained certain factual inaccuracies.
Furthermore, it stated that upon realising 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, the plea stated.
The matter was first mentioned before the Supreme Court on July 6, 2022, and subsequently on July 7, 2022. Yesterday, the court informed the senior counsel that, the matter had not been assigned to a bench yet.
Case title: Rohit Ranjan Vs Union of India
Please Login or Register
