Supreme Court grants protection from arrest to Zee News editor over Rahul Gandhi show

The Supreme Court on Friday granted Zee News editor Rajnish Ahuja protection from arrest in a case over a broadcast in which anchor Rohit Ranjan claimed that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had condoned the killing of a tailor in Udaipur.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and JB Pardiwala said, “There shall be no coercive action against the editor with respect to the FIRs registered or the future ones.” The bench also directed the court’s registry to tag the plea with Ranjan’s petition in the same matter.

According to Ahuja’s lawyer Siddharth Dave, the editor had FIRs registered against him in Manipur, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Bar and Bench reported.

On July 1, the channel's primetime show DNA aired a video of Gandhi talking about the vandalisation of his constituency office in Wayanad, Kerala, and passed them off as his remarks on the Udaipur killing. The following day, the channel had issued an apology, however, anchor Rohit Ranjan had been detained later in the week. The court had directed that no coercive action be taken against Ranjan, later in the month.