On Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear a petition from Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan challenging the FIRs that were filed against him in relation to a story about Congressman Rahul Gandhi that was aired on the network.
Ranjan’s representative, senior attorney Siddharth Luthra, requested an urgent hearing before Justices J. K. Maheshwari and Indira Banerjee.
The lawyer claimed Ranjan had expressed regret for what had happened and the video had been taken down. According to Luthra, Chhattisgarh Police are currently attempting to arrest Ranjan after Noida Police arrested him and released him on bail. On Tuesday, the Zee News anchor tweeted that Chhattisgarh police officers had shown up at his home to arrest him without notifying their local counterparts.
On Tuesday, the Noida Police detained Ranjan for questioning in relation to a complaint made against two of his coworkers on behalf of the Zee Media Corporation regarding the allegedly altered video. Ranjan has been charged by the Noida Police with violating IPC section 505(2) (statement conducive to public mischief and enmity).
Several IPC Sections, including 153A (promoting enmity between groups), 295A (outraging religious feelings), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and 467 were referenced in the FIR filed by the Chhattisgarh Police (forgery).
According to Mr Luthra, “This man was arrested yesterday by UP police at Noida and released on bail as the offence invoked was bailable.” He also said that the anchor had made a mistake in one of the shows and had apologised, and the news had been changed.
“Police in Chhattisgarh want to arrest him right now. He will be held repeatedly if you don’t list this urgently, the lawyer pleaded. The advocate-on-record in the case informed the bench that the plea had not yet been entered into the court registry after the bench decided to list the petition for an urgent hearing on Thursday.
“A team from Noida Sector-20 police station picked up Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan from his home on Tuesday morning for questioning in relation to an FIR filed under IPC 505 (public mischief) on a complaint by his channel over a doctored video played during his show on July 1, a Noida police officer told PTI.
A case was allegedly filed against Ranjan and others at Zee News on Sunday for allegedly inciting animosity between various groups and upsetting people’s religious sentiments in response to a complaint made by Congress MLA Devendra Yadav, according to senior superintendent of police Prashant Agrawal in Raipur.
The Raipur FIR was filed under IPC sections 153A (promote hatred between groups), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to incite religious sentiment of any class), 467 (forgery), 469 (forgery to harm reputation), and 504 (promote hatred between groups) (intentional insult).
Ranjan issued an apology on July 2, the day after the video was broadcast, for taking Gandhi’s remark out of context and equating it with the Udaipur murder case.
“Our team regrets the mistake, which was a result of human error. We regret the error, “He sent out tweets in Hindi.