TV anchor again asks Supreme Court to hear plea against multiple FIRs lodged for doctored Rahul Gandhi video

Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan on Thursday again approached the Supreme Court, contending that his plea for quashing of multiple FIRs or clubbing those with one case for running an alleged doctored video of Rahul Gandhi, has yet not been listed for consideration.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra mentioned the matter before a bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J K Maheshwari for posting it for hearing on Friday. He pointed out that the matter was mentioned on Wednesday.

The bench, however, said the files were with the Chief Justice of India and have yet not been assigned.

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On Tuesday, Noida police had arrested Ranjan and released him on bail. However, Chhattisgarh police tried to arrest him from his Ghaziabad residence.

In a show hosted by Ranjan on July 1, he allegedly presented the 'doctored' video clip of Rahul Gandhi, in which he was heard branding the Udaipur attackers as "children", purportedly justifying the heinous killing of tailor Kanhaiya Lal.

However, the original video had Rahul Gandhi's comments on the SFI attack at his Wayanad office, which was "deliberately and mischievously" doctored to make it appear as if it was a remark on the murder in Udaipur.

In his writ petition, Ranjan said the news show inadvertently misattributed certain quotes and the error was immediately rectified. "An unconditional apology was tendered by the petitioner and Zee News and show was withdrawn prior to registration of FIRs. However, multiple complaints were filed on "motivated grounds precipitated by malice" though the error was unintentional and almost immediately set right," his plea stated.

The petitioner faced FIRs lodged at Jaipur, Raipur and Noida.

He sought a direction for quashing of FIRs or clubbing of those cases with the FIR lodged at Jaipur and protection against any coercive action.

His plea also pointed out it is a settled law that there cannot be multiple FIRs with regard to the same cause of action.