Terming it “ambitious”, the top court of India dismissed a petition registered by the group, ARG Outlier Media Private Limited that also has the Republic TV network under its umbrella.
As part of the plea, the media company sought the protection (from arrest) of its entire group along with the employees of the news agency in regards to the many cases lodged against several of them in Maharashtra.
A bench, led by Justice Chandrachud, heard the petition after which it called the requirements as “ambitious” because it was too fantasized.
Presenting for the ARG group was advocate Milind Sathe who was told by Justice Chandrachud to “withdraw” the plea for their own benefit as it was not going to be entertained. He said to the senior lawyer, “This petition is ambitious in nature. You want Maharashtra police not to arrest any employee and transfer the cases to CBI. You better withdraw this.”
The lawyer reiterated the importance of seeking protection as the Maharashtra police and government were “hounding” their agency’s employees, especially their Editor-in-Chief, Arnab Goswami who has locked himself amidst several controversies due to his ill choice of words in the TV presentations and reports.
“You have sought all the reliefs and these can’t be entertained in one petition,” the bench said, following which, Mr. Sathe stated that he will withdraw the petition.
The bench welcomed the withdraw petition and told the lawyer and his clients to take the help of the solutions present in the Indian law to tackle their issue.
Apart from the protection, the plea urged the top court to stop the Maharashtrian government from “hounding them” and quash all FIRs booked against them. Alternately, the petition told SC to transfer the existing cases to the CBI if they cannot be nullified.
The long list of requests also spoke about the necessitation of a CBI enquiry against Maharashtra’s government and police force entirely for pressing charges on the news agency group’s employees and filing cases consequently.
It further asked protection against arrest so as to not allow the police to arrest any of the ARG’s staff, including Goswami.
The ruckus started when the Mumbai police filed a case against the group for their participation in manipulating the TRP (Television Rating Points) on the charts. Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had alleged that all the 3 TV channels under the ownership of ARG, Republic Media network included, executed the TRP scam.
Needless to say, the ARG Outlier Media Private Limited has rejected the accusations.
The police said that it was enlightened by the supposed scam after BARC, an association that works towards the evaluation of the TRP, informed the force and lodged a complaint pertaining to the matter via Hansa Research Group Pvt Ltd.
Along with this, Goswami is also facing some other charges, cases of which are pending in the state.
Goswmi and 2 others’ interim bail was extended by the Supreme Court on November 27th for 4 weeks as it said that the citizens need to be provided with relief to make sure the law doesn’t act as a weapon for selective harassment by any authority.
Goswami and others were arrested in relation to the abetment to suicide case of 2018 of an architect.
