Writ Petition Crl 257 /2022
A writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India on behalf of Mr. Rohit Ranjan, news anchor and Executive Assistant Producer of Zee News, seeking quashing of FIR’s, clubbing of the multiple FIR’s filed against him, protection against coercive measures, protection against any other Complaint/FIR that may be filed or registered against him and directions for providing adequate security to him, was listed today before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India before a bench comprising of Hon’ble Ms. Justice Indira Banerjee and Hon’ble Mr. Justice J.D. Maheshwari. The Petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate Mr. Siddharth Luthra briefed by Law Firm #Karanjawala. The Ld. Senior Counsel submitted that multiple FIRs and complaints against the petitioner have been filed for hosting a program namely “DNA” on Zee News on 01.07.2022, with respect to attack by certain miscreants on the office of a political party in Kerala. Zee News received a video from a third-party news agency.
The said video was being handled by two junior employees of Zee News who have since resigned from the organization. Relying upon the said video prepared by the aforementioned individuals, a script was created for the Channel’s 9 P.M show titled as DNA. The said show was hosted by the Petitioner on 01.07.2022, in which the Petitioner read out the script prepared beforehand.
Unfortunately, the contents of the show contained certain factual inaccuracies inasmuch as the statement of a Political Leader was unintentionally attributed to an incident distinct from the attack which occurred at the Wayanad Party office.
It was further submitted by Ld. Senior Counsel upon realizing the unintentional error, Zee News immediately retracted the news segment, apologized on air and deleted all social media posts qua the said news segment. The Petitioner, anchor personally 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 have been filed against the Petitioner under various provisions of law for the same incident, even though the error was unintentional and was almost immediately set right by the Petitioner and his organization.
During arguments, the following submissions were made on behalf of the Petitioner:
I. Multiple FIR’s arising out of the same cause of action were not permissible under law in light of the ratio laid down in TT Antony vs State.
II. The issue was covered under the provisions of Section 16 and 17 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and Programming Rules against the broadcaster. Therefore, when there is special law dealing with the issues in question, there was no question to invoke the criminal statute or registration of FIRs.
III. It was accordingly submitted that the multiple FIRs and many more complaints, which are being filed in various states have been registered with a predetermined and motivated objective to cause undue harassment to the Petitioner and the news channel.
IV. It was further submitted that due to numerous FIR’s already registered and multiple complaints filed in various states, which may also be converted into FIR’s, the Petitioner is being hounded by police from several states for an act which was neither intentional nor motivated and for which an unconditional apology has already been tendered and telecasted.
V. It was also submitted during the course of arguments that the contents as disclosed in the FIR at best makes an offence of defamation which is a bailable offence and the offences alleged in the impugned FIR are only for the purpose of harassing the Petitioner by pressing other non bailable offences.
On hearing the Petitioner, the Hon’ble court was pleased to pass orders issuing Notice to the office of Attorney General. In the meanwhile, the Hon’ble court was pleased to direct that there will be an interim order restraining the Respondent authorities from taking coercive steps from taking petitioner into custody in connection with telecast of DNA of 01.07.22 at 9PM.