POCSO Case | High Court Grants Relief To Journalist Chitra Tripathi, Sets Aside Gurugram Court's Arrest Warrants

Gurugram Court passed this order last month while cancelling her bail and rejecting her application for exemption from personal appearance before the court. The order was passed as the court noted that Tripathi was taking the court proceedings very lightly. Her anticipatory bail plea was also dismissed by the same court last month.

In its order, the Addl. District & Sessions Judge Ashwani Kumar Mehta had directed the SHO concerned to execute the warrant (for November 30) and to appear in person if the warrants remain unexecuted. When this warrant remained unexecuted on November 30, the Court had again issued an arrest warrant against her.

Challenging both arrest warrants, Tripathi approached the High Court, where her counsel submitted that she had sought exemption from personal appearance on the date as she was travelling to Nasik, Maharashtra, to cover the State elections.

Further, it was also argued that, as a responsible journalist, Tripathi is well aware of the gravity of the allegations and is very interested in the expeditious disposal of the trial. Thus, he prayed that the NBW issued against her be set aside.

Her counsel, however, withdrew the instant petition qua the prayer seeking permanent exemption from the personal appearance of the petitioner before the learned trial Court, with the liberty to file a fresh petition in this regard.

Hearing her plea, a bench of Justice Nidhi Gupta, without commenting on the merits of the case, set aside the orders of the Gurugram court while directing her to appear before the Court concerned on December 18.

The single judge also restored the original bail bonds and the bonds of her sureties and directed the trial to proceed further.

It may be noted charges against 8 Journalists, including anchors Deepak Chaurasia, Chitra Tripathi, and Ajit Anjum, Syed Sohail, have already been framed in this case for allegedly airing 'morphed, edited & obscene' videos of a ten y/o girl and her family and linking the same to a sexual assault case against self-styled godman Asaram Bapu.

The eight media professionals implicated in this case are Ajit Anjum, Anchor Suhail, and reporter Sunil Dutt, who worked with News24; editor-in-chief Deepak Chaurasia; anchors Tripathi and Rashid Hashmi; Jodhpur reporter Lalit Singh Badgurjar; and producer Abhinav Raj, who worked for India News.

They all have been charged under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 469 and 471 (forgery) IPC; sections 67B (abusing children online) and 67 (publishing or transmitting sexually explicit content) IT Act; and sections 23 (disclosure of identity of a child by the media) and 13C (indecent or obscene representation of a child) of the POCSO Act.

All eight persons have been charged with hatching a criminal conspiracy whereby agreeing to prepare a forged video of a minor girl victim aged about 10 years and her family by showing the victim and her family in an indecent manner and telecasting the same on news channels, thereby harming the reputation of victim and her family.

Further, they have also been charged for forging and editing the electronic record (the video clip), intending that the document or record forged shall harm the reputation of the victim and her family or knowing that it is likely to be used for that purpose and telecast the same on the respective channels and represented the girl child in an indecent and obscene manner by telecasting the forged/edited video clip on news channels.

Last week, hearing a plea of the Republic Bharat News Anchor Mohammad Sohail, the HC set aside the order of a trial court in Gurugram that cancelled the bail and issued a Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) of arrest against him. The court directed him to surrender before the trial Court/Duty Magistrate on or before December 12, 2024, and move an application for regular bail.

Senior Advocate RS Rai and Advocate Ashim Aggarwal appeared for Tripathi. Advocate Dharmender Kumar Mishra appeared for the Complainant.