Zee editors granted bail in extortion case

MUMBAI: A Delhi court today granted bail to Zee News and Zee Business editors Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia in the alleged Rs 1 billion extortion case filed by Congress MP Naveen Jindal.

Both Chaudhary and Ahluwalia were in police custody for 20 days following their arrest by Delhi police?s crime branch on 27 November.

Additional Sessions Judge Raj Rani Mitra granted bail following a plea by Chaudhary and Ahluwalia. "Bail is granted to both the accused," Mitra said.

The court also said that both the accused will be released on furnishing a bail bond and surety of Rs 50,000 each. The two have also been directed them to surrender their passports and not leave the country without the permission of the court.

It has also asked them to cooperate with the investigation.

Earlier, the court had granted interim relief to Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra and his son Punit Goenka. The court extended the protection of their arrest in the case till 20 December.

Chandra and Goenka?s counsel, senior advocate Geeta Luthra and Vijay Aggarwal had sought extension of the interim protection as Luthra had to go to Supreme Court to argue in another matter listed there.

The court on Saturday had reserved its order on the bail plea of the two editors after hearing them for around five hours during which the Delhi Police had opposed their application for grant of relief.

Both Chaudhary and Ahluwalia have been booked under section 384 (extortion), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the IPC.

The Jindal group has alleged that Chaudhary and Ahluwalia had tried to extort Rs 1 billion from the company in return for favourable coverage in the scam involving allotment of coal blocks, wherein JSPL is one of the companies that allegedly made windfall gains from arbitrary coal block allocations

Zee has, however, rubbished the allegations contending that it was JSPL which had approached Zee News to stop its aggressive coverage of the coal scam. It had also termed the arrest of its editors as illegal.