Hearing on Zee editors' bail deferred, DCP to explain lapse
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Irked
over the non-appearance of the two, Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Rao
also asked a senior police officer to explain the lapse.
"Why
the IO and the PP are not available despite a prior information from
this court? Let, a written explanation be filed by the DCP concerned,"
said Rao, adding the arguments on bail pleas of Zee News head Sudhir
Chaudhary and Zee Business Editor Samir Ahluwalia would now be heard on 3rd December.
The
jailed editors, whose bail pleas have been dismissed once, on Friday,
filed fresh ones and the police was supposed to argue the case after
filing their replies on Saturday.
The
court, however, deferred the hearing as the IO and the PP did not
appear despite prior information. The two editors were on Friday
remanded to 14 days' judicial custody till 14th December.
Except
the IO and the PP, defence counsel Rebecca John and advocate Ramesh
Gupta, who represented complainant Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, were
present.
The
journalists face charges of extortion and criminal conspiracy.
Punishment for the first is a maximum imprisonment of three years or
fine or both. For criminal conspiracy, it's up to six months or fine or
both.
Jindal
has alleged that Zee News tried to extort Rs 100 crore in exchange for
not airing stories linking him and his group to the coal blocks
allocation scam.
Jindal
had released a video-recording of meetings with executives of Zee TV
and claimed it to be the proof that they were trying to extort money
from him.
Jindal
said the news channel told his firm's executives that if they did not
spend Rs 100 crore on advertising, the channel would run negative
stories on allocation of coal fields to his firm.
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