The News Minute| Match 3, 2105| 2.20 pm IST
Times Now’s Deputy News editor Meetu Jain, who was named in the Essar leaks, has resigned from the organization and her resignation has been accepted.
Last week, The Indian Express published a report about the Essar group having allegedly attempted to cultivate journalists in a bid to get them to report favourably about the group’s business activities. Following this, Hindustan Times Energy Editor Anupama Airy and Editor of Mail Today Sandeep Bamzai also resigned.
Meetu Jain’s name finds a mention in the cache of emails leaked by an Essar employee and one of the emails said that a car had been arranged for her on October 5, 2012 for ‘local use in Delhi’. Meetu Jain, who was then working with CNN-IBN, had rejected this outrightly. Her current employer Times Now had told The News Minute that they have referred the incident to the Management Committee and a show cause notice has been issued to her. Both Jain and Airy preferred to resign, though their organisations had initiated enquiry.
In an email written last Friday to HT’s Chief Editorial and Content Officer Nicholas Dawes and Editor-in-Chief Sanjoy Narayan, Anupama Airy admits that she had taken the cab, but for a third person, and has raised serious allegations against others in the organization.
The newspaper however, denied these allegations.
She had said in the email that she requested the cab services as help from a friend she has known for years, and not on a professional basis as a journalist seeking favours from a company.
She says she wished to understand how, “what I have done for a friend has amounted to taking a favour while what I have been doing for my bosses and asked to do for the organisation doesn't amount to taking a favour”.
Meetu Jain said on Twitter:
1/16 For all trolls salivating for my scalp: Here's the good news. My resignation has been accepted. #Essarleaks
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 20152/16For all investigative journos making sly inferences.Prove quid pro quo not just with Essar but any corporate group. Or shut the fuck up.
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 20153/16 For all corporates: Nice try. But the damn limelight from #CorporateEspionage ain't shifting. (Oh damn!) #Essarleaks
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 20154/16For the so called whistleblower: Great timing! just before annual appraisals. I strongly recommend double promotion & fat salary hike.
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 20157/16 I sincerely wish an SIT is set up so the wheat can be sifted from chaff & d unabridged version of Essar largesse can finally b exposed
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 20159/16 For @TimesNow @thenewshour. I hold no grudges, never will. Working at Times Now was fun while it lasted. #EssarLeaks
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 201510/16 For the curious bystander: Check out my 2g stories on http://t.co/0Xn4WQ3Emk. The exposes relate to Corporates, to govt, babus & us
— meetu jain (@meetujain) March 3, 2015