The Supreme Court agreed to hear on Thursday the plea of a televison news anchor, facing several FIRs in some states for
playing a misleading clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, seeking protection from
coercive action for the alleged offence.
“List it tomorrow,” a vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J.K. Maheswari said on Wednesday when senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the TV anchor, sought an urgent hearing of the plea in view of the registration of several FIRs against him in many states for telecast of the clip.
“This man was arrested yesterday by UP police at Noida and released on bail as the offence invoked was
bailable,“ Luthra said, adding that the anchor made an error in one of the shows and apologised for that and the news was taken back.
“Now Chhattisgarh police want to arrest him. Please list this urgently since otherwise, he will be in repeated custody,” the senior lawyer said.
Congress MLA Devendra Yadav had said in a complaint that a video, in which Rahul Gandhi described the attackers of his Wayanad office as children and said he had no ill-will against them, was “mischievously” used by the TV channel on July 1 to suggest he was forgiving the killers of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal.
After the bench agreed to list the petition for urgent hearing on Thursday, the advocate-on-record said the plea was yet to be filed in the apex court’s registry.
“We should have been told that the matter has not been filed. This is no ground. This court is going to take a very strong view. As the AOR, you should have instructed your senior counsel,” the bench observed.
The senior advocate regretted the confusion.