December 15, 2020 9:36:49 pm
Lead attorney Aabad Ponda said they feared Mumbai police would arrest Goswami and other channel employees, and therefore sought interim measures until the next hearing on the case.
On Tuesday, the Maharashtra government assured the Bombay High Court that it would not act against Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and other employees of ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd until Wednesday, the next hearing date.
The Bombay High Court accepted the statement and said it would listen to the television channel’s request to annul the Mumbai Police FIR and Charge Sheet in TRP Scam Fraud Case tomorrow.
Lead attorney Aabad Ponda told the division court of Judge SS Shinde and Judge MS Karnik on Tuesday that they feared Mumbai police would arrest Goswami and other canal employees and therefore sought interim relief until the next hearing in the case.
Ponda argued that, according to a certain clause in the charge sheet, the form submitted by the police for the arrest of any Republic TV employee was invalid, as the Supreme Court had deemed it illegal.
The attorney general, Deepak Thakare, objected to Ponda’s arguments, saying the channel could not request a “blanket warrant” preventing police from arresting any of its employees. Furthermore, he said that Republic TV’s lawsuit could not be upheld, as the officials of the channel that the Mumbai police intended to arrest were not part of the statements and therefore the court could not grant them any relief.
However, Ponda said that the charge sheet, in addition to the name of the channel and its publisher, also mentioned ‘sambandhit vyakti (related persons)’ and therefore all channel employees could seek help.
Ponda added that he had been informed that the Mumbai police had arrived in Delhi to arrest Goswami and therefore it was urgent that the court intervene until both parties were heard.
After the court asked Thakare to seek instructions, he said that no coercive action would be taken against the people named in the charge sheet until December 16.
Meanwhile, a trial court in Mumbai on Tuesday Vikas Khanchandani, executive director of Republic TV in pretrial detention, who was detained in the TRP case on December 13, in judicial custody for 14 days. In addition, the Mumbai police assured the session court that they would not arrest Republic TV’s chief financial officer, S Sundaram, in the case until December 21.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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