The bail pleas of two senior editors of Zee News accused of attempting to extort Rs 100 crore from Congress MP Naveen Jindal's company was today rejected by a Delhi court, which remanded them in two-day police custody.
Sudhir Chaudhary, head of Zee News, and Samir Ahluwalia, Editor of Zee Business, who were arrested for allegedly trying to extort money from Congress MP Naveen Jindal's group for not broadcasting news reports on coal scam linking his firm, were produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha, who accepted the police's plea for their custodial interrogation.
The prosecution had said their custodial interrogation was necessary to unearth the conspiracy and the alleged complicity of channel's chairman Subhash Chandra and its MD Punit Goenka, who are also named as accused in the case.
The duo will now be produced before the court on November 30. Chaudhary and Ahluwalia were arrested last night on the complaint by Jindal's company filed in October.
Both the journalists have been booked under section 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the IPC.
Earlier, before the court proceedings, Jindal group in a statement said law was taking its own course and called it unfortunate that Zee TV has come out with a comment that the arrest of its editors in the case was a Black Day for the media.
"Zee TV's comment that the arrest of its editors is a Black Day for the media is unfortunate. The arrest of the two journalists being termed Black Day is rather demeaning the credibility of the media. Instead, Black Day was the day when these editors tried to extort 100 crore rupees from Jindal group under the garb of media," the statement said.
The Delhi police said that after the arrest of the two journalists, it has sent a notice to Subhash Chandra asking him to join investigations in connection with the case.
Additional Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan opposed the bail plea of the two editors and said their custody was needed to ascertain the alleged complicity of Chandra as they had demanded Rs 100 crore from Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) in the form of advertisments to the channel.
JSPL is among the companies named in the CAG report as one of the beneficiaries of the controversial coal block allocations.
The police also said it needed to find out the source from which the CAG report, which is the subject matter of dispute between the news channel and the Jindal Group, was obtained.
The prosecutor said the probe agency has evidence in the form of video and audio recordings of the two accused while demanding the money.
However, advocate Rebecca John, opposed the prosecution's theory and contended that as per the FIR registered by the crime branch on October 2, three persons of Jindal Group had approached Zee News.
"The meeting was at the behest of the complainant and not by us. The alleged tampering of the CAG report is not mentioned in the FIR and it is also not possible for others to fabricate it as it is a government report," John, appearing for the news channel, argued.
She further said that the FIR is a "counter blast" to put media on back foot so that no programme could be aired against Jindal Group for their alleged involvement in allocation of coal blocks.
John also claimed that the police is acting as a tool for the state by arresting the two mediapersons.