New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear journalist Rohit Ranjan's plea on Thursday in connection with a 'misleading show' for which he later apologized.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra mentioned news anchor Rohit Ranjan's plea before the Supreme Court and apprised the court that he was arrested on Tuesday by Noida Police and later released on bail and now the Chattisgarh police want to arrest him.
Luthra said that the matter needs an urgent hearing as Ranjan will be in repeated custody due to multiple FIRs lodged against him. He informed the court that he does a show in which there was a mistake and he later apologized for it but multiple FIRs were filed against him. A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari said to list it tomorrow.
After some time Advocate-on-Record clarified that the petition is yet to be registered. Advocate-on-record's submission irked the bench and Justice Banerjee asked "what is this" and said, "just because you passed an exam and wear a gown, you have started appearing in court." This is not even on record and not yet filed, the court remarked.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra apologized to the bench for the Advocate-on-record submission. Chhattisgarh Police on Tuesday reached the television channel news anchor's residence in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh after an FIR was registered against him following the broadcast of a misleading video on Rahul Gandhi for which the channel had issued an apology.
The anchor Rohit Ranjan, however, was taken into custody by Noida Police after he took to Twitter this morning and posted: "Chhattisgarh Police is standing outside my house to arrest me without informing the local police, is it legal". He tagged Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and SSP Ghaziabad and ADG Zone Lucknow in the tweet.
Responding to Ranjan's tweet, the Raipur Police, Chhatisgarh, posted on its Twitter handle, "There is no such rule to inform. Still, now they are informed. Police team has shown you court's warrant of arrest. You should in fact cooperate, join in investigation and put your defence in court."
Meanwhile, ADCP Noida said, "In the course of an investigation registered at police station Sector 20, a person named Rohit Ranjan, working in a news channel is being questioned."
Ranjan had on his show said, "Yesterday, in our show DNA, Rahul Gandhi's statement was taken in the wrong context by linking it to the Udaipur incident, it was a human error for which our team apologises. "The Congress filed a complaint in Raipur against Ranjan for allegedly "running a doctored video of Rahul Gandhi".
According to reports, the FIR filed by Congress said that Rohit Ranjan intentionally linked Rahul Gandhi's statements on the vandalization of his office to the Udaipur incident in an attempt to incite public sentiments.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi while referring to the attack on his Wayanad office had said, "The children who did this have acted in an irresponsible way. They are kids, forgive them." (ANI)
