Rajdeep Sardesai and others acquitted in November 2019 after apologising for ‘false news telecast’ on Sohrabuddin encounter case

Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and others were acquitted by a Hyderabad court in November 2019 after issuing an unconditional apology for incorrect reporting on the alleged Sohrabuddin encounter killing case. Sardesai had filed an affidavit on November 27 and issued an “unconditional apology”.

While the acquittal took place two months ago, news reports on it now stem from a January 11 tweet on the case. Publications like Bar and Bench and LiveLaw subsequently put up the details of the apology and acquittal.

In May 2007, Sardesai, then with CNN-IBN, had run a show that claimed that Rajiv Trivedi, an IPS officer who was part of a Special Investigation Team, had provided cars with “fake number plates”, using which Sohrabuddin was brought to Ahmedabad and purportedly killed in a fake encounter.

Bar and Bench reports that the state of Andhra Pradesh subsequently filed a case against Sardesai and 10 reporters from CNN-IBN. The state told a Hyderabad court the report “had tarnished the reputation of Rajiv Trivedi and was false, fabricated, and defamatory”.

Bar and Bench says: “The respondents had sought a direction from the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad to quash the case against them, but the plea was dismissed in April 2011. An SLP filed in the Supreme Court against this order was dismissed in May 2015. A plea to transfer the trial in the matter to Noida was also dismissed.”

On November 27, Sardesai filed an affidavit in the Hyderabad court saying it had been a “false news telecast” about Trivedi with “nothing to substantiate the allegation” about the fake number plates. According to Bar and Bench, Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge D Hemanth Kumar took the apology on record and passed the acquittal on the same day.