Gurugram Court Issues Arrest Warrants Against TV News Anchors Chitra Tripathi & Syed Suhail In POCSO Case

The Court passed this order while cancelling their bail and rejecting their applications for exemption from personal appearance before the Court.

In its order, the Addl. District & Sessions Judge Ashwani Kumar Mehta has directed the SHO concerned to execute the warrant (for November 30) and to appear in person if the warrants remain unexecuted.

Before the Court, while Tripathi's counsel sought exemption on the ground that the ABP News Anchor is travelling to Nasik, Maharashtra, to cover the Maharashtra election and interview State's Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Panwar, Suhail's counsel pleaded that his personal appearance should be exempted as he is travelling to UP's Kanpur district to cover by-elections.

Finding no justification in Tripathi's application, the Court observed that she has been taking the process of the Court quite lightly.

The Court also added that this case pertains to the year 2015, and if proceedings are not conducted expeditiously, then it will not be practically feasible to dispose of the case as soon as possible, which has already been delayed by nine years.

Similarly, finding no justification in seeking exemption from the court's appearance, the Court rejected the application of Republic Bharat Anchor while observing thus:

“In case the accused had any genuine emergency for attending any political event at Kanpur, then he could move an application in the Court by personal appearing in the Court to get his presence exempted for the date fixed. However, instead of moving such application, the accused had preferred to remain absent in the Court.”

It may be noted charges against 8 Journalists, including anchors Deepak Chaurasia, Chitra Tripathi, and Ajit Anjum, 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 who have been 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 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.