False news against Rahul Gandhi: Supreme Court grants interim protection from arrest to Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan

The Supreme Court today directed that no coercive action be taken against Zee Hindustan anchor Rohit Ranjan in relation to cases filed against him over a false news report claiming that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi condoned the recent killing of a man in Udaipur..The vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari in their order stated,"Issue notice. Service on the Union of India be effected through the office of the Central Agency. In the meanwhile, there will be an interim order restraining the the respondent-authorities from taking coercive steps against the petitioner to take him into custody in connection with the anchoring/telecast of DNA on 1st July, 2022.".Ranjan had 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. At this point, the Uttar Pradesh Police intervened and took Ranjan away after he tweeted about the development. He was charged for bailable offences and later released by the UP Police..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 was 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, the plea stated.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..Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared for Ranjan. He 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..[Read order]