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3WWW.LIVELAW.ININ THE COURT OF LD CMM, PATIALA HOUSE COURTS,NEW DELHIComplaint Case No. of 2021In the matter of:ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd.[Through Sh. Abhishek Kapoor,Authorized Representative ofthe Complainant Company]VERSUSNavika Kumar ComplainantAccused PersonCOMPLAINT U/S 499, 500 OF THE INDIAN PENAL CODE,1860 AGAINST THE ACCUSED PERSONS SEEKING THEIRPROSECUTION FOR DELIBERATELY AND WILFULLYHAVING COMMITTED THE OFFENCE AGAINST THECOMPLAINANT COMPANY.Most Respectfully Showeth:1. That the present complaint is being filed and instituted by theabove named Complainant, against the Accused - seekingprosecution and conviction of the Accused persons underSections 500 of Indian Penal Code for defaming theComplainant by making inherently defamatory statements andto cause serious harm to the reputation of the Complainant byimputing behavior incompatible with proper conduct andsuggestions of involvement in improper activity.2. Thatthe present ComplaintisbeingfiledthroughSh.Abhishek Kapoor, the Authorized Representative of theComplainant and he is fully authorized to file the presentcomplaint before this Hon’ble Court and also personallyaware of the facts in the present case and competent to

WWW.LIVELAW.INdepose, in the present matter The copy of Board Resolution isannexed herewith and marked as Annexure-A.3. The complainant company incorporated under the CompaniesAct, 2013, having its corporate office at the addressmentioned in the cause title above, which is within thejurisdiction of this court. The Complainant company ownsand operates the popular English and Hindi news TVchannels, Republic TV and R. Bharat respectively.4. Mr. Arnab Goswami, is a notable journalist, the ManagingDirector and the Editor-in-Chief of the Complainant, he hasbeen at the forefront of crucial public campaigns, includingthe, the Anna Movement, the Commonwealth Games Scam,the Muzaffarpur Shelter HomeCase, the Lalitgate Scandal andthe Kargil for Profit scam. In 2019, Mr. Goswami got PrimeMinister Narendra Modi's first pre-general Election interview.Mr. Goswamihas also interviewed global public personalitiesincluding Julian Assange, Benjamin Netanyahu and ThomasFriedman.5. Mr. Goswami has an impeccable reputation and has beenonthe Board of Directors of Asianet Media Pvt Ltd.6. That from the above, it is clear that the ComplainantCompany has through Mr. Goswami, earned name, fame andreputation in public at large. The Complainant Company hasunblemished record and holds great goodwill and reputationin the eyes of the general public.4

WWW.LIVELAW.INFactual Background7. The Republic Media Network has been the target of a vicious,vindictive and malice driven exercise under the State ofMaharashtra and the Mumbai Police. What started with a 100FIRs against Republic for seeking accountability on thePalghar Lynching was followed by physical attacks on ArnabGoswami, jailing Republic’s crew pursuing a lead in Karjat,diktats by the Shiv Cable Sena ordering cable operators toblock Republic, a fake TRP case and the arrest of its directorand most popular face Mr. Arnab Goswami in the Anvay Naiksuicide case.8. Several complaints were filed and FIRs were registeredagainst the Managing Director of Complainant Company Mr.Arnab Goswami in a concerted and indirect effort to beat theComplainant Company into submission who through its manyjournalists led by Mr. Arnab Goswami was questioning theinefficiency of the Maharashtra Government and investigatingauthorities in investigating the incident described above.Since then, the various officials and journalists of theComplainant Company have been thoroughly harassed byinvestigating authorities under the garb of investigation ofallegations having no basis whatsoever.9. This campaign of vendetta commenced following RepublicTV seeking accountability from the ruling coalition inMaharashtra for the Palghar lynching where two Hindumonks and their driver were lynched to death in full police5

6WWW.LIVELAW.INpresence and virtual complicity, as per the evidence now ative journalism in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, thisvendetta driven campaign accelerated in September 2020.10.On 30.6.2020, the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay stayedinvestigation in relation to the FIRs registered againstManaging Director of Complainant Company Mr. ArnabGoswamis there was no prima facie case made out againsthim. (This order is still operating. A Special Leave Petition,being SLP (Cri.) No. 4337 of 2020 is pending considerationbefore the Hon'ble Supreme Court.)11.In September, 2020, the Republic Network came across thecomplaint filed by Hansa Research Pvt. Ltd. under Sections409, 420, 120-B and 34 of IPC. This complaint was filed byMr. Nitin Deokar before the police with request to register anFIR, which complaint does not make any reference to thenews channels of the Complainant as having been involved inany TRP or viewership malpractices.12.On 8.10.2020, the Mumbai Police Commissioner Param BirSingh concealed the real channel named in the FIR andinstead blamed Republic in a nationally televised pressconference. Republic Media Network’s revenue was labelled

WWW.LIVELAW.IN“proceeds of crime” and it was said “BARC has identifiedcertain suspicious viewership in viewing of RepublicTelevision” without any actual basis.13.Since then the Mumbai Police has filed a chargesheet dated24.11.2020 and supplementary chargesheet dated 11.01.2021in the abovementioned FIR, the so called TRP Scam matter.The chargesheets which has been filed by the Mumbai Policeclaims that Dual Logical Channel number (Dual LCN) wasbeing used to increase TRPs, which is not only a matter underthe jurisdiction of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indiabut was never even the original allegation falsely peddledagainst Republic TV. The constant shifting of goalposts bythe Mumbai Police itself spills the beans on the malafideintent, the deep-seated malice, and the desperation on the partof the administration to reverse engineer a case against India’smost-watched news network. Despite such vendetta, it isnoteworthy that the Complainant is not named as an accusedin the FIR or either of the chargesheets.14.The Complainant Company filed Criminal Writ Petition No.3143 of 2020 before Hon’ble High Court of Bombay forquashing of aforesaid FIR, which is pending disposal.However, as per orders dated 15.12.2020, 06.01.20201 and15.01.2021 passed by Hon’ble Bombay High Court, State of7

WWW.LIVELAW.INMaharashtra is obliged not to take any coercive action againstthe Complainant Company and its representatives.15.The entire matter relating to alleged TRP manipulationsispending before competent courts or investigating agenciesincluding Hon’ble High Court of Bombay, Ld. Trial Court atMumbai, Mumbai Police, Central Bureau of Investigation,and the Enforcement Directorate.16.Given the multitude of fora already dealing with this matter,the Accused Person cannot be permitted to steal a march overthe adjudication process and pronounce guilt by elevatingitself a parallel adjudication forum. Two charge sheets havealready filed but investigation is still ongoing. Trial has notyet begun, and Complainant Company is factually innocentand also presumed innocent until proven guilty. The matterwill be decided in accordance with lawand no third-partyinterloper can be permitted to preempt the process of law.CAUSE OF ACTION:17.Navika Kumar, the Accused, anchored a show on 18 Januaryat 9pm called the Newshour - which has been uploaded onYoutube and has over 84,874 views just on the platform. inaddition to the live telecast at the prime time at Times Now.8

WWW.LIVELAW.IN18.By misusing, misconstruing and distorting the documentsfrom the Mumbai Police's chargesheet in the TRP Scam,mainly the WhatsApp Chats, and without regard to the matterbeing sub judice both before the lower courts at Mumbai andthe Hon'ble Bombay High Court, the Accused Person hasgone on a reckless spree to spew grossly defamatory materialmentioned below that has been telecast, published, circulatedand disseminated on the TV Channel Times Now as well asthe internet in various portal such as the You tube.19.It is of utmost importance to mention that, Prior to launchingRepublic TV in May 2017, Mr Goswami launched Bennett,Coleman and Company Limited’s Times Now, a 24x7 Englishnews channel, in 2006. Within a year of launching TimesNow, Mr. Goswami led his news team to the number 1viewership position in the English news genre. The Accused,currently still part of the company Times Now. The said factis in itself enough to show the motive of the Accused Personsto unnecessarily defame the Editor in chief of theComplainant company and in turn to impact the reputation ofthe Complainant company. It is in fact for the reason that theComplainant company in itself has now gathered attractionthat the Accused is jealous and the lack of ability of theAccused to match the success of the Complainant company,has caused this defamatory show to be aired.9

WWW.LIVELAW.IN20.The Accused Person, as a part of a planned scheme and totake advantage of the ongoing deep-seated malice intends tofurther her own corporate / commercial interests, andindulge in personal vendetta.(i)The Accused has falsely claimed that the Complainantcompany was unauthorizedly privy to official secretspertaining to the Balakot Air Strikes before the strikesactually took place on 26.02.2019, and further that theComplainant Company "leaked" such information. Theaccused has called the Editor in chief, a threat tonational security. on 18.01.2020, The Accused personhas called the Managing Director of ComplainantCompany a threat to national security. Though, therewas lot of public speculation, discussion and debates,the complainant are by way of illustration, placing forconsideration of the Court a few such articles in thepublic domain prior thereto.Times of India published articles saying “Response toPulwama attack: Precision air strikes the favoured option”on 16 February ia/respons10

4 days before the Balakot Air Strikes, India Today waswriting articles saying “Hard choices that PM NarendraModi has to make after Pulwama terror attack. AfterPulwama, how can Modi strike back at Pakistan?”discussing how India could strike back at Pakistanincluding various military options possible. [India Today(22 February, 2-22]India Today published an article ‘Retribution for theAttack Is Only a Matter of Time’ on 22 February, 2019.Link: -22 and in this article variousmilitary options were discussed.11

WWW.LIVELAW.INOn 17th Feb 2019, 10 days before the Balakot strike,Firstpostdeliberated on military options including strikes.“Pulwama aftermath: From surgical strike to economicisolation, four ways India can hit back at Pakistan”.[Link: -india-can-hit-back-atpakistan-6099841.html]On 21st Feb 2019, 5 days before the Balakot Strikes, TheTelegraph ran headlines saying “Intense public pressureon Narendra Modi to live up to his ‘surgical ]The Hindu in an article on 19 February spoke of how“The second option is to use strike aircraft to carry out12

13WWW.LIVELAW.INprecision strikes in locations across the Line of 5355.ece?homepage true](ii)The entire narration has been presented ina manner,which is suggestive of wrongdoingson the part of theComplainant Company and its Group to the public atlarge which reads it, thereby making grave insinuationswithout any factual ication or caveat, had telecast a Defamatoryshow, which was widely circulated. The same were alsocirculated online on the their website.21. The Defamatory show is a show conducted by Accused, theentire defamatory show is enclosed in a pen drive annexedherewith and marked as Annexure –B

WWW.LIVELAW.IN22. Copy of the Affidavit of under Section 65B of the IndianEvidence Act is annexed herewith and marked as AnnexureC23. The Accused, Navika Kumar, made comments as underrefereeing to the Editor in chief of the Complainant Company,in turn causing to defame the Complainant company, thecomments and statements made are also against theComplainant and are all a result of covetousness and to stealthe rightly deserved success of the complainant company. Thedefamatory excerpt by Accused is reproduced as 25520818178Navika Kumar: Ladies and gentlemen, Iwant to speak about this one story and I wantto ask you this one question that confronts abillion Indians tonight. Would any rightthinking journalist break into a tranceful TRPjoy over the mortal remains of our bravejawans, would any journalist be revelling atthe prospect of rating when the nation ismourning the martyrdom of 40 jawans,brutally butchered by Pakistan. I still cannever forget that visual, of the coffins lyingthere, I don’t think that there is a singleIndian who would not have a tear in his orher eye. Because that scene would moveanybody whichever profession, whicheverreligion, whichever state of the country,whichever region of the country, whichever14

WWW.LIVELAW.INgender, where ever you come from becausewhen you saw those coffins, you would thinkabout a country called Pakistan doing this tous and the families of our braves. Somebodymight be having children who are so smallthey wouldn't even remember their father’svoice but this is not what Mr Goswami wasthinking in his chats when he was chattingwith Partho Dasgupta, the ex-BARC CEO. Itis extremely unfortunate that this man, myformer colleague, today the owner of a veryso-called successful channelwho built thesuccess of this channel manipulating TRPsas alleged in the chargesheet presented by theMumbai police. Who literally jumped out ofIndia’s television screens every nightclaiming to be India’s only nationalist anchorArnab Goswami. What exactly has he done?With these conversations? That mask ofpatriotism has fallen and fallen hard.Tonighthe must face the same questions which hedishes out to several journalists whom hecalled the Lutyens media for several severalyears, who he alleged had indiscretions onnational security during the Kargil warduring even 26/11 attack, he questionedtoday he must face the same piercingquestions that he posed to severalcommentators and politicians who let downIndia’s interest. Tonight, isn’t it only fair thathe once again hide behind the facade ofnationalism, isn’t it fair that he should facesome of those questions? But the chats that15

WWW.LIVELAW.INhave been accessed by the Mumbai policeand filed in the courts in Mumbai, are therefor all to see. There’s no running away fromthe truth because his silence over theconversations which he hasn’t denied tilldate, they have been out in the public domainfor the last five days. No denial. No denial atall. But preaching to the others when youcannot follow the same, judging others whenyou can’t really hold up the standards ofethical journalism. Take a look at this report,on what Mr Arnab Goswami’s chats with hisfriend ex-CEO of BARC and what they saidand how it is all unfoldingPKG: On Feb 14 2019, every Indian wasshocked to the core, 40 of our brave jawanswere massacred by Pakistan backed terroristsin Pulwama. This self-proclaimed nationalistTV anchor and founder of Republic TVArnab Goswami who claims to wearpatriotism up his sleeve described thecowardly attack of Pakistan as a win likecrazy for his channel. Not only did he betrayour fallen jawans but never stopped short ofappraising his freind ex-BARC chief ParthDasgupta with classified Military action. It isbefore India crushed terror factory inBalakot, Arnab texted that India’s retaliationwould be more than a strike. He didn’t stopthere, in order to impress his friend inexchange for favours, he revealed inside16

WWW.LIVELAW.INinformation on state security secrets. Threedays before India abrogated Article 370, hewas again caught tipping Partho Dasguptathe alleged conspirator in the TRP fixingscam. The opposition says it won’t settle foranything apart from a joint parliamentaryprobe. *Bytes of Ashok Chavan and RPNSingh* Arnab Goswami has some pointedquestions to answer. On air he is a selfproclaimed patriot but can jubilation over themartyrdom of our braves be counted asnationalism. Bureau report, Times Now.Navika Kumar: Ladies and gentlemen, thereis just one point to say when Arnab left and Istarted anchoring the show the NewsHourthat once belonged to him, I was asked that Ihad big shoes to fill. Today ladies andgentlemen, I find these shoes extremely tight,extremely tight because they weren’t big atall because they weren’t big at all and I justhope I never fill in these shoes and I justhope god gives me the strength that I don’tbecome the vulture that he possibly hasgone on to become. Today’s Arnab is notthe man I knew when I worked with him. Solet me dissect the alleged chats further andfocus on the key words used by Mr ArnabGoswami.All I am trying to do is toreemphasise why these comments cannot betaken lightly. These are his exact words, thisattack we have won like crazy. Which attack?The Pulwama attack. What happened in thoseattacks? 40 of our braves. And what does17

WWW.LIVELAW.INour nationalist Mr Arnab Goswami have tosay? This attack we won like crazy. Can youbelieve it viewers? How can one simply thinkof ratings victory when the tears of 40families wouldn’t even have dried thinkingabout their loved ones? He even tells hisformer BARC boss that his coverage wasaimed to gain a massive TRP spike how canone even think of conversing by putting onrecord writing in a message a rating agencyboss in the middle of an attack? When youronly duty was to expose Pakistan for daringto do this to India. And all of this is platinumstandards in breaking, that’s what he says onthe chat, this is platinum standards ofbreaking news. 40 dead, platinum standard ofbreaking news and somebody is celebratingthat? I just want to ask what if that news wasbroken five minutes later? 10 minutes laterby another channel. I would rather have saidthat I pray to god that I would never have tobreak a news of this kind but it is nothing bututter disrespect, contempt and callousnessand crude commercial profiteering overmartyrdom of our braves that Mr. nationalistArnab Goswami gives way into his soul forothers to watch today when these chats havebecome public. And there is only onequestion that confronts18

WWW.LIVELAW.INTHE SIZE OF THE AUDIENCE TO WHOM THEDEFAMATORY CONTENT WAS CIRCULATED BYTHE ACCUSED IS WIDE RANGING:24.Navika Kumar, The Accused made sweeping statements inmatter that is subjudice and under investigation and tried tocloud the minds of the public.25.Apart from its national and international broadcast audience,Navika Kumar’s statements and commentary bereft of factwas circulated on the Twitter handle of Times Now which has9.9 million Followers. This means these followers were fed anarrative that blemishes the truth and was spin-doctored forcommercial considerations.26.Apart from its national and international broadcast audience,Times Now has 1.98 million subscribers on Youtube, and theNewshour Debate in question has over 84,874 views just onthe platform.27.Apart from the Times Now national

IN THE COURT OF LD CMM, PATIALA HOUSE COURTS, NEW DELHI Complaint Case No. of 2021 In the matter of: ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd. [Through Sh.

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