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News channels painted Bollywood as criminals: Plea
The petitioners sought directions against Republic TV, its editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and consulting editor Pradeep Bhandari, Times Now, its editor-in-chief Rahul Shivshankar, and group editor Navika Kumar, as well as social media platforms.
A plea filed by 34 top Bollywood production houses and four industry bodies against two English television news channels and its journalists alleges that the latter painted the entire film industry as criminals and made them synonymous with drug abuse in the public imagination.
The 1,069-page petition was filed in the Delhi high court on Monday and was accessed by HT on Thursday. It said the impact of the “wrongs of the defendants” was felt prominently in the Capital and therefore the legal action was initiated in the Delhi high court.
“They [the channels] are targeting specific individuals with the malicious intention of damaging their reputation in the eyes of the public, invading the private lives of various persons in the industry and dragging their personal lives into the public domain, and trying to show it in a completely false light across the board,” the petition said.
“By their words, actions and publications the defendants are adversely impacting the right to a fair trial in these cases where several persons from Bollywood may be called as witnesses and some may even be prosecuted as accused,” it added.
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Among the petitioners were houses owned by actors Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Farhan Akhtar, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Karan Johar, Rohit Shetty, Vinod Chopra, and Ashutosh Gowarikar -- also asked for the channels to be barred from conducting a “media trial”.
The Film & Television Producers Guild Of India (PGI), Cine & TV Artistes’ Association (CINTAA), Indian Film and TV Producers Council (IFTPC), Screenwriters Association (SWA), Yash Raj Films, and Reliance Big Entertainment, were among the other petitioners.
The petitioners sought directions against Republic TV, its editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and consulting editor Pradeep Bhandari, Times Now, its editor-in-chief Rahul Shivshankar, and group editor Navika Kumar, as well as social media platforms.
Kumar and Shivshankar had on Monday said they did nothing wrong.
“Cases against journalists of Times Now that have only sought justice for those who are wronged are a bad precedent...,” Shivshankar had tweeted.
“If fighting for justice invites court cases, bring it on.. Let truth prevail,” Navika Kumar had tweeted on Monday.
The document said a perusal of various articles online reflected that the defendants were publishing and circulating false, disparaging and malicious allegations against the Bollywood actors.
Also Read: Top film houses move High Court against 2 channels
“The words used, remarks made, as well as the essence of the assertions and allegations made by the defendants against the plaintiff, include without limitation…. “cocaine and LSD drenched Bollywood”, “your consumption is the reason that Pakistan is carrying out narcoterrorism operations enabling asymmetric warfare on our country”, “the open secret in Bollywood of money that comes from the underworld to finance movies, you’ve seen stars all through the 80s and 90s and these stars going to Dubai, dancing in parties held by Dawood Ibrahim, heard of stars being booked for collaborating with the Underwood and going to jail, you’ve heard of supari killing being ordered by the underworld against other competitors of a certain group of people.” etc.
The petition said that various articles, videos and broadcasts made it evident that the defendants were “deliberately inciting anger and hatred in the general public for persons associated with Bollywood which can endanger their safety as several of them are well known and easily identified and may be subjected to violent reactions in public places”.
It also said that the actions of the channels and their anchors and reporters were “systematically destroying the goodwill that many personalities in the industry have spent years building and would tantamount to wanton and illegal destruction of the most valuable asset of the business”.
The plea said that the privacy of persons associated with Bollywood was being infringed every day as private “facts” about lives of Bollywood personalities were being dragged into the public and their private communications -- including WhatsApp messages -- were being illegally accessed and published in the public domain without authorisation.
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