Sudhir Chaudhary, head of Zee News, and Samir Ahluwalia, Editor of Zee Business, who were arrested for allegedly trying to extort money from Congress MP Naveen Jindal's group for not broadcasting news reports on coal scam linking his firm, were produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha, who accepted police's plea for their custodial interrogation.
The Prosecution had said their custodial interrogation was necessary to unearth the conspiracy and the alleged complicity of channel's chairman Subhash Chandra and its MD Punit Goenka, who are also named as accused in the case.
The duo will now be produced before the court on November 30.
Chaudhary and Ahluwalia were arrested last night on the complaint by Jindal's company filed in October.
Both the journalists have been booked under section 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the IPC.
Earlier, before the court proceedings, Jindal group in a statement said law was taking its own course and called it unfortunate that Zee TV has come out with a comment that the arrest of its editors in the case was a Black Day for the media.
"Zee TV's comment that the arrest of its editors is a Black Day for the media is unfortunate. The arrest of the two journalists being termed Black Day is rather demeaning the credibility of the media. Instead, Black Day was the day when these editors tried to extort 100 crore rupees from Jindal group under the garb of media," the statement said. (More)
