Writ Petition Crl /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 among other reliefs quashing of FIRS, clubbing of the multiple FIR’s filed against him and for protection against coercive measures was mentioned for urgent listing 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. These multiple FIRs and complaints against the petitioner have been filed for telecasting a program namely “DNA” on Zee News on 01.07.2022, with respect to attack by certain miscreants on the party office of a political party in Kerala. Zee News received a video from a third party agency namely ANI. The said video was being handled by Mr. Bikash Kumar Jha who was working as Trainee Producer and Mr. Narinder Singh. Relying upon the said video prepared by the aforementioned individuals, a script was prepared 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.
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 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.
The matter was mentioned on 05.07.2022 before the Hon’ble Supreme Court seeking direction for urgent listing, by Senior Advocate Mr. Siddharth Luthra briefed by Law Firm Karanjawala and Co. led by Ms. Ruby Singh Ahuja-Sr. Partner and Mr. Samarjit Pattnaik-Partner along with their respective teams comprising Mr. Vikas Gogne, Mr. Vishal Gehrana, Mr. Irfan Muzamil, Mr. Satyam Chaturvedi, Ms. Kritika Sachdeva and Mr. Varun Khanna, Advocates. The Hon’ble Supreme court was apprised that multiple FIR’s arising out of the same cause of action were not permissible under law. Furthermore, 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. 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 premotivated objective to cause undue harassment to the Petitioner and the news channel. 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. The Ld. Senior counsel hence made out a case for urgency in the matter and direction of the Hon’ble court for urgent listing of the petition.
Upon hearing the submissions in the mentioning the Hon’ble Court was pleased to allow the mentioning and directed the matter to be listed on 07.07.2022,subject to the filing being allowed by the registry.
However despite all defects being cleared and the order for listing, the matter was not listed by the registry for 07.07.22. Accordingly Mr. Sidharth Luthra, Senior Advocate instructed by the team of Karanjawala & Co again mentioned the matter on 07.07.22 before the bench pointing out that despite the direction, the matter has not been listed. Justice Banarjee, informed that since the matter is with the Hon’ble Chief Justice for proper assignment it will not be proper for this Court to pass further directions. There is a likehood now that the matter is listed only after reopening of the regular Court on 11.07.22.
