Zee News anchor Rohit Ranjan’s decision to approach the Supreme Court against FIRs filed in Rahul Gandhi’s doctored video case backfired on Wednesday. The lawyer appearing for the controversial anchor had to face the wrath of Justice Indira Banerjee, who minced no words in scolding the Advocate-on-Record.
Ranjan’s lawyer, Siddharth Luthra, mentioned the matter before the vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari for an urgent listing. The Bench listed the matter for hearing on Thursday (tomorrow). However, after the Bench passed an order, Luthra clarified that the petition had not been filed yet.
This irked Justice Banerjee, who scolded Luthra without mincing words. “What is this? Just because you passed an exam and wear a gown, you have started appearing in court. This is not even on record and not yet filed,” Livelaw quoted Justice Banerjee as saying.
Luthra apologised to the Bench but this did not stop him from facing the wrath of Justice Banerjee, who said, “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 AOR you should have instructed your counsel.”
"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 AOR you should have instructed your counsel" – Justice Indira Banerjee tells the AoR.#RohitRanjan
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 6, 2022
Luthra had informed the court that his client had made an error by wrongly linking Rahul Gandhi’s remarks to the beheading of a tailor in Udaipur. In reality, Gandhi was reacting to the attack on his office in Wayanad in Kerala by SFI activists. Faced with multiple FIRs, Zee News had issued two public apologies on LIVE TV.
A team from the Chhattisgarh Police this week arrived in Ghaziabad to arrest Ranjan, but they were stopped from doing so by the Uttar Pradesh Police. The Ghaziabad Police briefly arrested Ranjan before releasing him on bail.
Ranjan had moved the Supreme Court against the multiple FIRs filed against him in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
