The Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, headed by Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray, on behalf of the Deputy Commission of Mumbai(Zone III), has filed an application in the apex court of the country alleging that the Republic TV Editor-in-Chief was “browbeating” the police.
The application was filed after the Supreme Court granted three weeks of interim protection to Mr Goswami from any coercive action in the wake of multitudes of FIRs filed against the journalist, alleging defamation against Congress Leader Sonia Gandhi as well as attempting to disrupt communal harmony of the country through his statements in his Daily show.
Stating that Mr Goswami was abusing the interim protection granted to him by the top court, the petition filed by the Maharashtra government alleged that Mr Goswami was “heckling and badgering” police officials and thereby impeding the proper investigation, the application has appealed for preventing him from such conduct.
The application, which was filed on behalf of advocate Sachin Patil, stated that after Arnab Goswami’s inquisition for the FIR lodged against him concluded, he went on his prime time show “Republic Bharat” and raised aspersions on Mumbai Police’s integrity.
In addition, the police gave an account of and the sequence of FIRs and investigation carried out so far and made a reference to the Hindi show-“Puchta Hai Bharat” as, “The statements on his debate on his Republic Bharat channel are aimed browbeating, terrorizing and intimidating the investigating officer”.
Citing the tweets posted by his organisation’s official Twitter handle, the application asserted that Mr Goswami and his organisation had tried to portray Mumbai Police as prejudiced against the petitioner and that it unnecessarily questioned the petitioner for several hours.
“Mr Goswami made several false statements against the Commission of Mumbai Police, claiming that he had squelched the petitioner’s FIRs and that he was involved with India Bulls which is a scam and that he(Arnab) is probing the India Bulls,” the petition contends.
Furthermore, the application claimed that the actions of Mr Goswami exhibit an ‘extremely disturbing state of affairs” and disparaged the “institution of Police”, abusing and exploiting his position as a journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV.
Arnab Goswami interrogated for more than 12 hours for referring to Sonia Gandhi with her birth name “Antonio Maino”
On 27th April, Arnab Goswami was interrogated for over 12 hours by Mumbai Police at NM Joshi Marg Police station in Mumbai. He was questioned after the Congress party filed more than 150 FIRs against him in various states of the country. The Supreme Court had merged all the FIRs into one and transferred to Mumbai. The apex court had also granted interim protection of three weeks to the Republic TV Editor. Republic Network’s CFO was also questioned for several hours in the same case.
Arnab was hounded for launching an attack against Sonia Gandhi, wherein he had questioned if she would have maintained the silence she is exhibiting today had Christian padres been killed instead of Hindu sadhus in the horrifying lynching incident in Palghar. However, soon after, Congress leaders and many journalists started abusing Arnab and by extension Prime Minister Modi implying he was responsible for Arnab questioning Sonia Gandhi’s silence and calling the interim Congress president with her birth name-Antonio Maino.
Mumbai Police continues its vendetta
Despite interim protection from the Supreme Court, the Mumbai Police continued its feud against Republic TV Editor in chief Arnab Goswami and registered another FIR against him yesterday. The new FIR had been registered on his remarks over the migrant labour protest in Bandra on April 14, therefore this does not come under the ambit of Supreme Court order that had said that no fresh FIR can be filed Against Goswami for his comments on Sonia Gandhi’s silence in Palghar lynching case.
