Day after arrests, Zee News, Jindal firm trade charges

At a press conference on Wednesday, Zee News repeated that the arrests were illegal and represented a “black day” for Indian media. JSPL on the other hand demanded to know if it wasn’t the media’s “responsibility to portray the truth and play a role in investigations against those bringing a bad name to media”.

JSPL sought the cancellation of Zee News’s broadcast licence.

Zee News Ltd described the arrests of Sudhir Chaudhary, editor and business head of Zee News, and Sameer Ahluwalia, editor and business head of Zee Business, as a crude attack on the independence of the media.

Zee News alleged again that it was JSPL — owned by Naveen Jindal, the Congress MP from Kurukshetra —which had offered its executives a bribe of Rs 100 crore to stop an investigation into alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks by the UPA government.

Zee News, which has several news channels including Zee News and Zee Business, is owned by Subhash Chandra, a leading entrepreneur who also has interests in real estate, infrastructure and commodities among other sectors. JSPL is a $ 3.5-billion company with interests in steel and power.

In a statement issued after Zee’s press conference, JSPL responded to Zee’s “black day” description: “...The black day was the day when these editors tried to extort Rs 100 crore

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