Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan has been granted interim protection from arrest by the Supreme Court after multiple FIRs were filed against him on complaints of the Congress party. A bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari issued orders restraining authorities in multiple states from taking coercive steps against Rohit Ranjan.
“We direct that no coercive steps be taken against by respondent authorities or take him into custody in relation to DNA program on July 1,” the court said in its order.
Appearing for Ranjan, Senior Adv Siddharth Luthra said that multiple FIRs were filed for the same offence in Noida, Jaipur and Chhattisgarh. He also informed that Rohit Ranjan has already apologised for the error in the show.
Rohit Ranjan had moved Supreme Court after Chhattisgarh police had initiated action against him for a misleading claim made in the show Daily News and Analysis on Zee News, which is being hosted by Ranjan after Sudhir Chaudhary left the network last week. In the show on July 1, Rahul Gandhi’s comment on the attack on his office in Wayanad by SFI goons were used as his comments on the Kanhaiya Lal murder by mistake.
Both Rohit Ranjan and Zee News had apologised for the mistake, but still Congress party had filed multiple FIRs.
In the plea, it was argued that the channel had received a video of Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with the press from news agency ANI, and a trainee producer made the mistake of using the comments on attack on his office in the context of the Udaipur murder. After the error was realised, the show was retracted and the channel had expressed regret on air.
The plea is seeking clubbing all the FIR, and quashing of the same.
In a significant development, the bench also said that as multiple FIRs were filed in multiple states against the same person for the same alleged offence, the TT Antony case will apply. In the T.T. Antony vs State Of Kerala case in 2001, the Supreme Court of India had ruled that when a second FIR is filed in the same case, if it is not significantly different from the first case, it will not be valid and such FIRs can’t be filed.
According to the landmark verdict of the apex court, subsequent FIRs can only be filled if there are additional discoveries in a case and additional charges are slapped against the accused. While the bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari has agreed to upheld this ruling, earlier the bench of Justices Surya Kant and J. B. Pardiwala had refused to follow it in Nupur Sharma case. As dozens of FIRs have been filed against former BJP spokesperson for her comments on Prophet Mohammad, she had filed a plea to club all of them and transfer them to Delhi, but the Supreme Court had rejected that petition.
