MUMBAI: An IPS officer of the city police has submitted a criminal defamation complaint against Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, Goswami’s wife and the channel’s director Samyabrata Ray Goswami and ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd, owner of Republic Media Network, for making allegedly disparaging remarks against him and Mumbai police in connection with the probe into actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
The plea, submitted by 2007 batch officer Abhishek Trimukhe, deputy commissioner of police (zone lX), urged the sessions court to take cognisance of offences relating to defamation and common intention and direct the accused to pay compensation and litigation costs.
Referring to Arnab Goswami, the plea said freedom of speech and expression and freedom of press was not an absolute right and “was clothed with a sense of responsibility which the accused is duly accountable in law when he strays as a habitual offender.” It said the accused have “cunningly hidden behind the “nation wants to know” rhetoric to make their statements and get away from consequences of their wrongdoing.” Trimukhe had been granted sanction for the complaint by the state home department on October 23.
Rajput’s death on June 14 last year was first probed by Bandra police. Trimukhe was the DCP supervising the inquiry. The probe was later taken over by the CBI on the SC’s orders. The plea said Arnab Goswami had made malicious and defamatory statements, which were telecast on his channel Republic Bharat and later published on its YouTube channel on August 7. “The same purports to be a panel discussion pertaining to the phone records of Rhea Chakraborty, in connection to the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. However, far from being a discussion conscribed by journalistic ethos, the defamatory telecast has accused breaking into a tirade of defamatory statements against the complainant (Trimukhe),” the plea said.
It further said this was done with an intention to not just drag Trimukhe’s name “through the mud, but also cast aspersions on the conduct of Mumbai police.” “The averments also impute that Mumbai Police, and specifically the complainant (since his image was flashed for almost the entirety of the show) are actively helping Rhea Chakraborty (actor and Rajput’s girlfriend at the time of his death) in evading arrest and on how to go about destroying any evidence of alleged wrongdoings,” the plea said.
The plea further alleged that graphics used throughout the show, along with Trimukhe’s name and picture, was a clear and deliberate attempt to “impute” that he was guilty of abusing his position as DCP to help perpetrators get away.
The plea stated that allegations to the effect that “Mumbai Police is the greatest obstacle in Sushant’s path to justice” were defamatory. It added Goswami and his accomplices had sought to create an impression that instead of overseeing the investigation properly, Trimukhe was involved with the alleged accused as part of a larger conspiracy to scuttle it. The plea said these were false allegations.
Naming a Twitter handle which, the plea claimed, belonged to Arnab, it alleged he had published several defamatory tweets and recirculated contents of the telecast to a larger audience.
Trimukhe’s plea said the contents had caused severe prejudice to his reputation, goodwill and career and deep distress to his colleagues, juniors and family members.
A statement by one of the legal advisors of Republic TV said, “Our initial reading of the defamation complaint is that the DCP refers to tweets from a fake Twitter handle impersonating Arnab. It is amusing that such a grave error has been made. Mr Goswami is not on social media… On the other parts, the Republic Media Network will respond legally, as per due process.”