The Supreme Court of India today issued notice on the petition filed by Zee News Anchor Rohit Ranjan seeking to club/quash the multiple FIRs that have been filed against him in various parts of the country and seeking direction that no coercive action be taken against him in the FIRs lodged and also asking for security of himself and his family members.

The bench comprising of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice J. K. Maheshwari stayed the Respondent parties in the matter from taking any coercive action against the Zee News Anchor in the multiple FIRs that have been filed against him.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra appearing for Rohit Ranjan apprised the court of the fact that FIRs have been filed against him in the state of Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra had yesterday mentioned the matter of Zee News Anchor Rohit Ranjan before the bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice J. K. Maheshwari asking for urgent listing of the matter. He informed the court that Ranjan had been arrested by the Noida Police on Tuesday and was later released on bail. Chhattisgarh Police also wants to arrest him.

Luthra had apprised the court that Ranjan used to anchor a show in which he committed a mistake and had later apologized for the same but in the meanwhile, several FIRs were filed against him. He asked the court for an urgent listing otherwise Ranjan would be in repeated custody due to the various FIRs.

Chhattisgarh State Police had reached the anchors house in Ghaziabad after an FIR had been registered against him after a misleading video of Rahul Gandhi for which the channel issued an apology.

The petition filed before the court stated that, "The error that occurred was unintentional, and in any case, the issue at best is covered by Section 16 and 17 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and Programming Rules against the broadcaster. Therefore when there is special law dealing with the issues in question, there was no question to invoke the criminal statute or registration of FIR"

FIRs have been filed against Rohit Ranjan at Jaipur, Raipur and Noida which in his petition he claims to be "vindictive, frivolous, malicious, precipitated with malice, untenable in law and have been filed with malafide intent for the sole purpose to coerce, harass and intimidate" him and to muzzle his voice and the voice of media.

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Zee NewsRohit RanjanMultiple FIRs

Deepankar Malviya