Zee chairman gets third notice to join investigation

The Delhi police crime branch on Tuesday told a Delhi court that it would need the custody of the two arrested Zee News editors on the day the company's chairman Subhash Chandra and its managing director Puneet Goenka join the investigation, reports Karn Pratap Singh.

The Delhi police crime branch on Tuesday told a Delhi court that it would need the custody of the two arrested Zee News editors on the day the company's chairman Subhash Chandra and its managing director Puneet Goenka join the investigation.

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The police filed an application seeking a day's remand of the two editors.

In another development, the crime branch served a third notice to Chandra and Goenka on Tuesday afternoon, asking them to join the probe on Saturday. While Chandra is said to be in London, sources say Goenka is in Mumbai.

In their application, the crime branch told the court that they want further police remand of Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia, both arrested in connection with an alleged extortion bid case filed by Congress MP Naveen Jindal's company, for a day.

They said they want to confront Chaudhary and Ahluwalia with Chandra and Goenka on Saturday when they are expected to join the investigation, said a source.

The move to serve fresh notices to Chandra and Goenka comes a day after Chandra in a letter, sent through his lawyer, told the police that he was prepared to appear before them within four days of notice.

Zee News Group lawyer, RK Handoo, confirmed that they have received the third notice from the police and said both Chandra and Goenka will join the investigation on Saturday.

Delhi Police had served two notices to Chandra and Goenka in November, asking them to join the investigations after the arrest of Zee News Group editors for their alleged Rs.100 crore extortion bid from Jindal's company for not airing news damaging to it.

In a letter to Delhi police through his lawyer RK Handoo, the Zee Group chairman had claimed that “vested interests” had created a public “mis-impression” that he is deliberately not joining the investigations.

Meanwhile, the crime branch have initiated investigation into the alleged threat calls to the Jindal Group by the underworld don Ravi Pujari who asked them to withdraw the case against the Zee News Group.

“A fresh section of IPC will be added if the allegations are found genuine,” said a senior investigating officer.