Doctored Rahul Gandhi video: SC asks states not to take coercive action against TV news anchor

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday deterred several state authorities from taking coercive action against Rohit Ranjan, a TV news anchor, who is facing many FIRs for broadcasting a doctored clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during a July 1 programme.

A vacation bench comprising of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari issued a notice to the Center through the Attorney General's office on Ranjan's plea which sought to quash the complaints or FIRs related to the broadcast.

Ranjan later apologized and withdrew the news programme.

While issuing the notice in the petition in which the Centre, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan were parties, the Supreme Court said that the respondent authorities should not take coercive steps to take the petitioner into custody.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, Ranjan's lawyer informed the bench that currently three FIRs have been registered in Jaipur, Raipur and Noida. He said there was an unintentional mistake in the program and the petitioner had also apologized.

Luthra said that the two people who were responsible for the mistake have resigned from their positions.

"Today, my difficulty is, the first FIR is in Jaipur, the second FIR is at Raipur in Chhattisgarh," Luthra said, adding an FIR is also there in Noida.

In the petition filed by the anchor through the law firm Karanjawala & Co, he has sought relief including quashing the FIRs or complaints or clubbing them and transferring them to one place. Ranjan has also requested that no coercive action be taken against him for the programme that was withdrawn and said that both he and the channel have apologised for the same

The request in the petition is to provide security to the journalist, his family members and colleagues associated with the said programme.

"The present writ petition is being filed under Article 32 of the Constitution praying for the quashing /clubbing of almost identical criminal complaints.

FIRs were filed across the country against the petitioner.

The petitioner prays for the stay of coercive action during the pendency of the present petition," the plea said.

It said Ranjan "anchored /hosted a programme on Zee News on July 1, 2022.

The news show inadvertently misattributed certain quotes and the error was immediately rectified.

An unconditional apology was tendered by the petitioner and Zee News and the news show was withdrawn even before the registration or filing of any FIR and complaint".

However, multiple FIRs and complaints have been filed against the petitioner under various sections of the law for the same incident.

Referring to various judgements, it said, "There can be no second FIR and consequently there can be no fresh investigation in respect of the same cognizable offence or incident giving rise to one or more cognizable offences."

"Since it is impossible for the petitioner to approach various courts/police stations all over the country in respect of such FIRs/complaints, the present writ petition is being filed under Article 32 against the violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (a) (freedom of speech and expression) and Article 21 (right to life and liberty) of the Constitution," it said.

Also, the issue is covered under the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the 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 said.

On Tuesday, a police team from Chhattisgarh arrived in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad town to arrest the anchor from his home but was instead arrested by the Noida police, who later released him on bail.

In Raipur, Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Agarwal told PTI that a case was filed against Ranjan and others at Zee News on Sunday for allegedly inciting enmity between various groups and hurting the religious sentiments of people based on a complaint by Congress MLA Devendra Yadav.

In the complaint, Yadav said that a video of Gandhi describing the attackers at his office in Wayanad as children and telling them that he had no ill will against them was "mischievously" misused on July 1 by the TV channel to imply forgiveness for the killers of Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor from Udaipur.

The FIR in Raipur was lodged under Indian Penal Code sections, including 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 467 (forgery), 469 (forgery to harm reputation), 504 (intentional insult).

On July 2, a day after the video aired, Ranjan apologized for misplaying Gandhi's statement out of context in connection with the Udaipur murder case.

"It was a human error for which our team is apologetic. We apologise for it," he had tweeted in Hindi.

With PTI inputs