New Delhi:
The Delhi Police says that Zee News misreported the facts while reporting on the company owned by Congress MP and steel tycoon Navin Jindal. "There was an element of deception involved," investigators said in a Delhi court today. Two senior executives of Zee were arrested yesterday on charges of extortion and criminal conspiracy. The court today dismissed their bail plea and remanded them to two days in police custody.
Mr Jindal says they met with his representatives and asked for 100 crores in advertising to bury negative reports on his firm, Jindal Steel and Power. His executives secretly taped three of the four meetings. The police said today that while some footage examined is from security cameras at the five-star hotel where both sides met, other recordings were made with hidden cameras placed by Mr Jindal's executives in their watches or buttons. Phone conversations were also taped.
Zee has denied the charges against its officials and has described the arrests of Sudhir Chaudhary, head of Zee News, and Samir Ahluwalia, head of Zee Business, as an attack on the freedom of the press by the Congress-led government. The channel's CEO Alok Agarwal said that the police was pressured by the government into "illegal arrests."
A forensic lab has confirmed that the footage submitted by Mr Jindal is not doctored.
In September, Zee aired a couple of reports on Jindal Steel and Power in which it alleged that the firm was one of many favoured by the government while allocating valuable coal fields. The government's auditor, CAG, has said the process lacked transparency and allowed windfall profits to private firms. Zee cited that report in its story/stories on Mr Jindal's firm, but misreported CAG's findings, according to the police.
Zee claims that it was Jindal Steel and Power Limited who tried to bribe its executives into dropping stories on the company.