The Kerala High Court has stayed all proceedings against journalist Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV, in a criminal defamation case.
CPI(M) leader P Sasi had filed the criminal defamation case against Arnab, alleging that he humiliated the people of Kerala during a primetime debate in August 2018 on whether the Centre had refused to accept aid from UAE government to Kerala for flood relief. The case was also filed against ARG Outlier Media Asianet News Pvt Ltd, the owner of Republic TV.
In March, a Judicial First Class Magistrate’s Court in Kannur had summoned Arnab to appear before the court on June 20. However, Arnab and ARG Outlier Media approached the Kerala High Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to quash the case against them, reported Live Law.
Senior Advocate P Vijayabhanu, who appeared for Arnab and ARG Outlier Media, submitted that the case was based on a distorted version of the broadcast.
According to Live Law, Vijayabhanu submitted that the thrust of the broadcast was to highlight the fake news in relation to UAE's alleged offer to provide flood relief of Rs 700 crores to Kerala. His counsel argued Arnab was criticising the people with vested interests who had started a false campaign that Central Government stopped the UAE grant. He also argued that the complainant did not qualify as an aggrieved person, as the broadcast was directed against the false campaigners and not against entire Keralites.
Following this, Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan admitted the petition and stayed the proceedings in the case.
In a clip from the debate, which was doing the rounds soon after the show, Arnab had said: “This group is shameless, is the most shameless bunch of Indians I have ever seen, they have gone around spreading the lie religiously. I don't know what they get for it. Whether they get paid for it? Do they get paid money for abusing their own country? Are they part of a group and who are they funded by? Point is it is a conspiracy to malign India.”
Accusing Arnab of ‘propagating violence’ and ‘belittling Malayalis’, the CPI(M) leader had also sought an unconditional apology from Arnab and also Rs 10 crore as a donation to the Chief Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund.
However, a NewsLaundry story, which analysed the news telecast, had said that Arnab was referring to Congress, Left and 'tukde-tukde gang' as shameless and not Mayalalis.
Also, in another part of the show, Arnab can be seen saying, “People of Kerala have been physically vulnerable and psychologically resilient. They have shown how great they have been as people.”
Lie: Arnab Goswami insulted people of Kerala by calling them shameless.
— Pradeep Bhandari (@pradip103) August 25, 2018
Handle spreading falsehood: @Advaidism
Truth: "People of Kerala have been physically vulnerable and pyschologically resilient. They have shown how great they have been as people". #KeralaFloods #Kerala pic.twitter.com/4S17HEOuWP
In another case, Arnab Goswami was also earlier summoned by a trial court in Thiruvananthapuram in connection with a criminal defamation case filed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. The MP had alleged that the journalist made defamatory statements against him in a programme aired on his channel in connection with the death of the former’s wife, Sunanda Pushkar. Arnab then moved the Kerala High Court, which, in turn, stayed the proceedings in the case in January.