[Rohit Ranjan case] Case papers are with Chief Justice of India for assignment: Supreme Court informs counsel

The Supreme Court said on Thursday that the case papers pertaining to Zee Hindustan anchor Rohit Ranjan's case are with the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for assignment, and a vacation bench cannot direct its listing. .The vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheswari said that the case has still not been assigned to them.The matter was mentioned on Thursday by Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra after the same Bench had earlier directed that the plea be listed, after curing of defects.Bar & Bench has learnt that the matter is now likely to be listed only after the Court reopens on July 11..Zee Hindustan anchor Rohit Ranjan approached the Supreme Court against the Chhattisgarh Police's action in relation the channel's false broadcast against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.The channel had broadcast a news show alleging that Rahul Gandhi had said that the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal Teji in Udaipur should be forgiven. Gandhi was, in fact, referring to those who had vandalised his office in Wayanad, Kerala, and not to the Udaipur killers.The channel had later published an apology.The Chhattisgarh Police had, however, arrived at Ranjan's residence at 5:30 am on July 5 to arrest him. However, the Uttar Pradesh Police came to his rescue and took him away after he tweeted the development, NDTV reported. He was charged for bailable offences and released by the UP Police, the report said..The plea before the apex court seeks clubbing and quashing of the multiple First information reports (FIRs) filed against Rajan, and protection against coercive measures. It has been argued that the channel had received a video from a third-party agency ANI, which was handled by a trainee producer. The show based on the same had factual inaccuracies. When the channel realised the same, it retracted the show and expressed regret on air. It was submitted that multiple complaints have been filed even as the error was unintentional. Further, multiple FIRs arising out of the same cause of action are not permissible and the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act exists as a special law to deal with the matter.The FIRs in multiple States coupled with hounding by authorities, have been filed with a pre-determined and pre-motivated objective to cause undue harassment to the anchor and channel, it was contended. .Luthra was briefed by a team from law firm Karanjawala and Co, led by Senior Partner Ruby Singh Ahuja and Partner Samarjit Pattnaik, with Advocates Vikas Gogne, Vishal Gehrana, Irfan Muzamil, Satyam Chaturvedi, Kritika Sachdeva and Varun Khanna.

[Rohit Ranjan case] Case papers are with Chief Justice of India for assignment: Supreme Court informs counsel

Debayan Roy

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