New Delhi, Aug 5 : The Supreme Court on Friday granted protection from arrest to Zee News Editor Rajnish Ahuja in FIRs filed against him in connection with a manipulated video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi “condoning” the murder of an individual in Udaipur. A bench of Justices D.Y.Chandrachud and J.B.Pardiwala issued notice to Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan as well as the Central governments and directed them to file the issue with anchor Rohit Ranjan’s petition.
Senior advocate Siddharth David, representing the petitioner, stated that FIRs had been registered against the petitioner in Raipur in Chhattisgarh as well as Sikar in Rajasthan.
Following a hearing of Dave’s arguments the bench ruled: “There shall be no coercive action taken against the Editor with regard to the FIRs he has registered or the ones to come.”
On July 8th the Supreme Court granted protection from arrest to the anchor of the news on the basis of his plea to quake of multiple FIRs or combining them in one case in relation with the video that was doctored.
The counsel for Ranjan had claimed that his client had made an error during the show and he apologized for it later.
However, several FIRs have been filed against him in connection with the show.
Ranjan was observed anchoring with an undocumented footage of Gandhi, in which the actor was heard calling Udaipur attackers children “justifying” the horrific murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in the last week.
The original video contained Gandhi’s comments about the SFI attack on his Wayanad office that was “deliberately and slyly” altered to appear to be an attack on the horrific killing of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur.
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