JOIN USIn an alleged extortion bid of Rs 100-crore from Congress M P Naveen Jindal's firm, the investigators questioned Subhash Chandra, Zee Group chairman and his son Puneet Goenka, Zee News MD and CEO at crime branch office in Chanakyapuri for second day on Sunday.
They arrived at Chanakyapuri around 1:30 pm. Goenka was allowed to leave by the investigators after half an hour of questioning but Chandra was interrogated till late Sunday night. The investigators believe that Goenka was not directly involved in the alleged extortion bid. But for Chandra, who had secured an interim bail till December 14 from a city court, it was a tough time as he was confronted in the presence of two arrested Zee editors - Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia. Chandra, who joined probe immediately after returning from London, was in talks with the editors while they were involved in the alleged extortion bid. The investigators questioned Chandra about the allegations that the channel used the biased news reports alleging involvement of Jindal Power and Steel Ltd in the coalgate scam to get Rs 100 crore worth of advertisements from the company.
The investigators asked Chandra about his telephonic conversation with Ahluwalia about the latter’s meeting with Jindal company’s representative. Police, during investigation, found that Ahluwalia had telephoned Chandra and conversed for 280 seconds. He is being questioned by senior officials of the crime branch including Joint Commissioner of Police S B K Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police S B S Tyagi and Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajender Bakshi. A statement from the Zee Group said Chandra and Puneet cooperated with the police to help dig out truth.
On Saturday, both Chandra and Puneet were questioned for around nine hours at the crime branch office and they were released around 11:30 pm. They were called for a joint probe on Sunday afternoon.
Chandra joined questioning after police sent three notices asking him to join the probe in which Chaudhury and Ahluwalia were arrested on November 27.