TV anchor Rohit Ranjan gets SC protection from arrest

New Delhi, July 08: The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim protection from arrest to TV news anchor Rohit Ranjan, facing several FIRs in some states for playing a doctored clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The apex court also directed concerned authorities not to take any coercive steps against him in connection with multiple FIRs lodged against him for running an alleged doctored video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari passed an interim order restraining respondent authorities from taking coercive steps to take Ranjan into custody in connection with the telecast of DNA show on July 1, 2022.

The top court was hearing the plea of the news anchor who is facing FIRs in some states for playing a doctored clip of Gandhi.

On Tuesday, a police team from Chhattisgarh reached Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad town to arrest the anchor from his home but he was instead arrested by the Noida police who released him on bail later on Tuesday night.

The FIR in Raipur was lodged under IPC sections, including 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class), 467 (forgery), 469 (forgery to harm reputation), 504 (intentional insult).

On July 2, a day after the video was aired, Ranjan had apologised for mistakenly playing Gandhi's statement out of context by linking it with the Udaipur murder case.

"It was a human error for which our team is apologetic. We apologise for it," he had tweeted in Hindi.