Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, July 8: The Supreme Court on Friday gave Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan interim protection from the numerous FIRs that had been filed against him due to an alleged doctored footage of Rahul Gandhi’s speech.
An interim injunction was issued prohibiting the respondent authorities from using coercive measures to arrest Ranjan in connection with the broadcast of the DNA show on July 1, 2022, by the vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari.
The bench was deliberating over Ranjan’s petition, which claimed that the alleged video was obtained from ANI, a third-party agency, and that Zee News promptly withdrew the news segment, apologised on air, and removed all social media posts related to it after realising it contained factual inaccuracies and unintentional errors.
In his argument on behalf of Ranjan, senior attorney Siddharth Luthra argued that because multiple FIRs for the same offence have been filed, the TT Antony case, which held that there cannot be a second FIR and, consequently, no new investigation upon receipt of any information regarding the same cognizable offence or the same occurrence or incident giving rise to one or more cognizable offenses will apply.
