Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia, the editors of Zee
News and Zee Business respectively, were arrested here on charges of
extortion on Tuesday Nov 27,2012.
“Both Chaudhary and Ahluwalia
were called for interrogation to the Inter-State Cell of the Crime
Branch in Chanakyapuri. Following their interrogation, which lasted for
several hours, they were arrested,” said a senior police official,
adding that there was substantial evidence against the two.
The
arrests were made more than a month after Jindal Steel and Power Ltd.
(JSPL) filed a complaint with the police alleging that Rs. 100 crore was
demanded in the form of advertisements to dilute the campaign launched
by the news channel against the business group in connection with the
alleged coal block allocation scam.Later, JSPL
chairman Naveen Jindal released video recordings allegedly showing the
Zee editors trying to extort Rs. 100 crore in return for the channel not
airing damaging stories on coal block allocations involving JSPL.
The
14-minute video footage showed the editors bargaining with the JSPL
executives. While releasing the CD, Mr. Jindal had claimed that this was
the first time an Indian corporate was exposing media malpractice.
The channel had refuted Mr. Jindal’s claims and
described the episode as “...a deliberate attempt to malign the
trustworthy television network.”
The CD carrying the footage was later sent for forensic examination which established it as genuine.
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