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New Delhi: Four leading Bollywood associations and with 34 producers on Monday filed a suit against news anchors of Republic TV and Times Now for “irresponsible reporting by certain media houses” in relation to the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
Petitions have been filed before Delhi High Court against Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari of Republic TV and Times Now popular faces Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar, among others.
The plaintiffs sought news channels to refrain from “making/publishing irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood, its members” and stop carrying out media trials against film fraternity by infringing upon their privacy.
This comes in the wake of the above-mentioned channels using words and expressions for Bollywood such as “dirt”, “filth”, “scum” and “druggies”, and expressions such as, “it is Bollywood where the dirt needs to be cleaned”, “all the perfumes of Arabia cannot take away the stench and the stink of this filth and scum of the underbelly of Bollywood”, “this is the dirtiest industry in the country”, and “cocaine and LSD drenched Bollywood”.
They also prayed that the defendants abide by the provisions of the Programme Code under the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994, and to withdraw, recall and take down all defamatory content published by them against Bollywood.
Petitioners in the case include the Producers Guild of India, the Cine and TV Artiste Association, Ad-Labs Films, Aamir Khan Productions, Ajay Devgn Ffilms, Anil Kapoor Film and Communication Network, Arbaaz Khan Productions, BSK Network and Entertainment, Cape Of Good Films, Clean Slate Filmz, Dharma Productions, Ashutosh Gowarikaer Productions, Excel Entertainment, Filmkraft Productions, Hope Production, Kabir Khan Films, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures, Red Chillies Entertainment, Reliance Big Entertainment, Rohit Shetty Pictures, Roy Kapur Productions, Vinod Chopra Films and Vishal Bhardwaj Films, among others.
According to the filmmakers, the channels in question have been regularly flouting the Programme Code framed under Section 5 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and contained in Rule 6 of the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994, which governs the television channels owned and operated by these Defendants.
The petition elaborated the SSR case, which when transferred to CBI, became a circus-like situation for these channels that rushed to suggest that the CBI would start making arrests.
The complainants stated that they do not seek a blanket gag order against media reportage of the investigation in the Sushant case but merely seek a perpetual and mandatory injunction against the defendants from carrying on with reportage that violates applicable laws. The suit has been filed by DSK Legal on behalf of the plaintiffs.
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