POCSO Case | Gurugram Court Rejects Anticipatory Bail Plea Of Journalist Chitra Tripathi Following Issuance Of Arrest Warrant

The arrest warrants were issued as the court cancelled her bail and rejected her application for exemption from personal appearance before the Court.

Tripathi had sought an exemption because she was travelling to Nasik, Maharashtra, to cover the Maharashtra election and interview the State's Deputy Chief Minister. However, the Court rejected her application, noting that she has been taking the court's process quite lightly.

#JustIN | #GurugramCourt has DISMISSED the anticipatory bail application filed by TV News Anchor Chitra Tripathi (@chitraaum) after an arrest warrant was issued against her earlier this month in connection with a POCSO Case. pic.twitter.com/xJjgVCpXLp

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) November 28, 2024

Now, in her anticipatory bail plea, Tripathi's counsel raised grounds similar to those presented in her exemption application. Her counsel argued that she could not appear before the court because Tripathi is the Vice President of ABP News Channel and had travelled to Maharashtra to conduct interviews. Therefore, her counsel requested that she be granted anticipatory bail.

To support her argument, her counsel submitted photographs of Tripathi with the then Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, taken while she was interviewing Pawar aboard an aeroplane. Additionally, tickets for the trip were also filed with the anticipatory bail plea.

On the other hand, the Special Public Prosecutor strongly opposed her plea on the grounds that if Tripathi had to go to Maharashtra for interviews with high-ranking politicians, she could have requested an exemption after appearing in court, as the interview schedule would have been set in advance.

It was also contended that Tripathi had disregarded the court's process and, therefore, she was not entitled to the relief sought in her application.

Having heard the counsels for both parties, the Additional District and Sessions Judge Ashwani Kumar Mehta noted that her plea was liable to be dismissed primarily because she had based it on the same grounds as the applicant's earlier exemption application.

The Court added that since her exemption request had already been rejected, the anticipatory bail plea was also liable to be rejected.

Besides that, the Court also observed that her anticipatory bail application before this court was not maintainable as the same court issued an arrest warrant against her.

The Court added that Tripathi could only move surrender-cum-bail application before this Court, or she could approach the High Court for a grant of anticipatory bail. Given this, her bail plea was dismissed.

It may be noted that Tripathi has been accused of 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. She has 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.