The Delhi High Court Friday asked the Centre as to what action it has taken subsequent to the NBSA report indicating violation of code of ethics by several TV channels in their news reports connecting actor Rakul Preet Singh with the Rhea Chakraborty drug case.
Justice Navin Chawla asked the Centre, represented by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma and central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul, to file a fresh status report in furtherance of the court’s earlier orders in the matter and in view of the NBSA report.
The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) was also asked to place on record its report/orders on the complaints made by Singh against various TV channels for connecting her with Rhea Chakraborty drug case and the court listed the matter for hearing on March 4.
The actor in an application filed earlier has sought an interim order against the media till the time the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Mumbai, completes the investigation in the drug case and files an appropriate report before the competent court.
The high court on September 17 had said that the leaks to the media need to be investigated as “someone’s reputation is totally destroyed by this”.
The NBSA in its orders of December 9, against various TV channels, has observed that several news reports were based on information received from NCB which has not issued any statement disputing the same.
NBSA has censured some TV channels for their use of “misleading” hashtags and taglines in their broadcasts of the case and some others have been asked to issue an apology to the actor.
It has also directed the TV channels to immediately remove videos of the offending broadcasts from their websites and YouTube and to “exercise greater care, caution in future while telecasting such news stories and taglines”.
The court had earlier expressed the hope that “media houses would show restraint in their reports and would abide by the cable TV regulations, programme code and various guidelines, statutory and self-regulatory, while making any reports with regard to the petitioner”.
In her main petition, the actor has sought directions to the authorities to stop media reports from connecting her with the Rhea Chakraborty drug case.
She has claimed, in her petition, that Chakraborty had already retracted the statement in which she was allegedly named and yet the media reports were connecting her to the drug case.
The NCB probe has stemmed from the investigation into actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case.
She has contended that based on unsubstantiated allegations defamatory programmes were being run in the media against her which was causing irreparable harm and injury to her.
The petition had also alleged that the ministry, PCI and NBA “have failed to discharge their statutory functions of ensuring compliance of their own directives, which has resulted in the flagrant violation of the fundamental rights of the petitioner”.
