[Bollywood Producers Suit] 'TV Channels Can't Run Maligning Campaign' : Delhi High Court Asks Republic TV, Times Now To Comply With Program Code

Hearing a plea moved by film production houses against alleged derogatory reporting by Republic TV and Times Now the Delhi High Court today issued notice to all parties, giving them two weeks' time to file their replies. Meanwhile, the Court has directed the TV channels to follow the Programme Code and give "serious consideration" to the resolution of the matter at hand. The bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher further deleted Facebook and Google as necessary parties to the suit, however, it refused to issue any direction as of now, to Youtube, to take down the said alleged derogatory videos. The matter is listed for further hearing on December 14. Refusing Adv Malvika Trivedi's plea seeking more time to file Republic TV's reply to the matter, as Arnab Goswami is in judicial custody, Justice Shakdher said that certainly there would be "other people in the organisation to work on the reply". The Court has also recorded in its order assurances given by the Times Now and Republic TV to follow the Cable TV Act & Rules, and the Programme Code.The plaintiffs include the production houses of Bollywood big names Aamir Khan, Sharukh Khan(Red Chillies), Salmaan Khan, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor and major production houses such as Yashraj Films, Dharma Productions (of Karan Johar), Nadiadwala, Excel, Vidhu Vinod Chopra films, Vishal Bharadwaj, Reliance Big etc.Thiry four big production houses and four major associations of the Hindi film industry have jointly filed the suit seeking to restrain journalists such as Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari of Republic TV, Navika Kumar and Rahul Shivshankar of Times Now and several unknown defendants and social media platforms from publishing "irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood members". Appearing for the production houses, Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar exhibited the reporting of Arnab Goswami before the court; wherein words such as 'kingpin of Bollywood', 'Pakistani funded', 'nepotists', 'Bollywood's rotting cabal which uses stolen scripts', have been used by Goswami in his reporting. Sr. Adv. Nayyar also read out an excerpt from one of Goswami's reports to make his case of derogatory reporting about the film industry with Goswami stating, "Kangana was right, Sushant was too good for this industry, no perfume can diffuse Bollywood's stench, boycott Bollywood, clean up Bollywood's dirt." Quoting Arnab's reporting on the Bollywood-Drug nexus, Nayar also read out Arnab's reporting to the Court on the subject, wherein statements such as 'crack open Bollywood's drug nexus, go after the drug nexus, elite of Bollywood has begun to stink like drugs, Deepika Padukone is asking for 'maal', talent managers are providing drugs to these stars' have been made by Goswami. Pointing out that Arnab suggested in his news reports that Bollywood has links with Pakistan, Sr. Adv Nayyar submitted that while his reporting had started with Sushant Singh Rajput's death case, it had moved to drug peddling and Bollywood's links with Pakistan and ISIS. He further went on to read Arnab's reports under his signature title, 'The Nation Wants to Know Tonight'. Sr. Adv Nayyar further submitted that Arnab had also made specific allegations in his news reports, against Bollywood actor, Shahrukh Khan, for allegedly doing 'anti-India activities' and went on to ask if any action would be taken against Khan for the same. Nayyar stated that Arnab had further alleged Khan supported Jihad and the 'ideology of Imran Khan' and demanded Khan to issue a public statement denouncing these links with terror supporters. Nayyar stated that other 'TV channels like Times Now had followed suit after Republic TV started using such reporting for increasing its TRP', and that they had gone 'a step further and produced Whatsapp chats' on their shows. Times Now, he argued, had even shown the list of questions used by the National Crime Bureau to interrogate Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty – this was an interference with investigation, Nayyar stated. He went on to submit that the 'only channel that did responsible reporting was India Today,' and that most others had crossed the line between fair criticism and derogatory and irresponsible reporting – this was also an infringement of the right to privacy of the plaintiffs, he argued. He demanded that 'scurrilous tweets' made against Bollywood should be directed by the Court to be deleted by Republic TV and Times Now. Relying on the Vibhor Anand case to substantiate his arguments, Nayyar stated that 'public perception was being influenced by this consistently biased reporting.' Adv Akhil Sibal further added on to Nayyar's arguments, stating that the TV channels had made 'sweeping abusive statements against Bollywood' in their shows, which were a "complete perversion of license and rights that journalists generally enjoy." He added that, the 'idea was not to attack media as a...

[Bollywood Producers Suit] 'TV Channels Can't Run Maligning Campaign' : Delhi High Court Asks Republic TV, Times Now To Comply With Program Code

Karan Tripathi And Shreya Agarwal

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