JOIN USFiling of a PIL in the Supreme Court claiming a nexus between Essar and opinion makers has put some senior journalists in the spot with leaked emails suggesting that the latter took favour from the corporate entity.
Those named in the emails, which were part of the PIL, included Sandeep Bamzai, Anupama Airy, Meetu Jain, a female agency journalist and Mayur Shekhar Jha.Bamzai, Airy and Jain were said to have been provided taxis by Essar for private use while Jha was given its guesthouse for hosting a party.
Following this, Bamzai resigned as Editor of Mail Today and Airy as Energy Editor of Hindustan Times. Jain of Times Now was taken off duty pending her reply to an explanation sought by the channel.
According to the emails, which formed part of annexure of the PIL, Bamzai requested Essar to provide him a car between November 20, 2012 and November 24, 2012.
Another mail later noted that Bamzai “would like to continue with the car till December 1, 2012”. Essar provided the car from November 8, 2012 to November 11, 2012 for a former military personnel following her recommendation.
According to the mails, Jha was offered the guesthouse and Essar officials were asked to arrange lunch and liquor.
Jain was given a taxi for one day in October 2012. A series of emails were exchanged between Essar officials after then SAIL chairman pointed fingers at the corporate for “planting” stories.
One of the emails claimed that the SAIL chairman “bluntly” accused Essar and you never know, to get the quote of the Chairman SAIL, the journalist would have partly divulged the information. “Any way, we need to be more careful in future in planting stories,” one of the emails said. Following the resignation, Airy also shot off a letter accusing some of her colleagues of wrongdoing.