Zee News ridicules allegation of forgery

On January 18, 2013, Zee News Ltd had brought before the Nation that yet another FIR has been slammed on it by Shri Naveen Jindal, MP.

The fresh FIR is a repeat performance of an earlier FIR by Shri Naveen Jindal, MP, in as much it is full of similar falsitude and over reach of extant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and taken on board in toto by Delhi Police without any effort to ascertain preliminary facts and like the FIR on October 2, 2012 which was accepted by Delhi Police around midnight of a national holiday, was accepted late at night at 21:30 hrs!

Stating that this new FIR is a counter offensive to investigation ordered by the court to be conducted by SHO Tuglak Road, and a figment of imagination, mala fide and oppressive and based on flimsy grounds, ZNL said the documents claimed by Shri Jindal, MP, to be forged were on website scribd.com at the link - http://www.scribd.com/doc/104756747/IMG-note.

The said link provided relevant details of the date of upload, the publisher’s name, etc. It transpires that the IMG Note was uploaded on 03.09.2012 by “ndtvonline” at scribd.com. The profile of Ndtvonline available at http://www.scribd.com/ndtvonline provides relevant information such as the number of uploads, etc. On the scribd.com website it was specifically mentioned that the link was uploaded by NDTV and same contain water mark of NDTV.

If one sees those documents clearly one can very well see the watermark of NDTV coming in the background so it is clear that the source of the information available at scribd.com is NDTV. Further ZEE News accessed these documents and after compiling these documents along with the other documents from various sources including CAG report and thereafter has shown these documents in the program telecasted on 19.10.2012 tilted ‘Media Ka Sauda’. The said documents were used in various media reports believing them to be authentic.

Further the said note of IMG as uploaded on NDTV bears the watermark of NDTV, which is a responsible media organization.

ZNL wishes to point out that on 3rd September 2012 at 3:15PM

www.ndtv.com published a news report namely COAL SCANDAL: 60 COAL BLOCKS COULD BE DE-ALLOCATED, SOME GRANTED BY NDA where in NDTV themselves claimed that they have accessed an internal note of IMG.

NDTV in their article stated that “………However, a note prepared by the inter-ministerial group for today's meeting offers a different take.

"Cancellation of coal blocks allotted since 1993 (including NDA regime) where no development has taken place will defuse current crisis," it reads.

The aforementioned document on scribd.com was available only as paid content.

The copy of the screen shot of NDTV website published a news report namely COAL SCANDAL: 60 COAL BLOCKS COULD BE DE-ALLOCATED, SOME GRANTED BY NDA is available upon request.

Further, similar reports were uploaded at the NDTV Profit website under the title – “Coal scandal: 60 blocks up for review today, licences at stake”. A copy of the screen shot of the website NDTV Profit of the news paper report title – “Coal scandal: 60 blocks up for review today, licences at stake” is available upon request.

The link to the said page where NDTV uploaded the said IMG note is:

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/coal-scandal-60-coal-blocks-could-be-de-allocated-some-granted-by-nda-262285

On 3rd September 2012 at 7:54 PM www.ndtv.com published a news report namely COAL SCANDAL: FINAL REPORT BY INTER-MINISTERIAL GROUP BY SEPTEMBER 10 which stated under the heading of – HERE ARE THE 10 LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THIS STORY “…….NDTV has accessed an internal note of the Inter-Ministerial Group, which was set up in June this year. It says that the cancellations that it recommends could defuse the current crisis. It also says that production in the 60 blocks, which it has identified for non-performance, is unlikely by March 2013…….”

The copy of the screen shot of NDTV website published a report namely COAL SCANDAL: FINAL REPORT BY INTER-MINISTERIAL GROUP BY SEPTEMBER 10 is available upon request.

All the above clearly shows that the note which was shown in the telecast of Zee News’s bulletin dated 19.10.2012 was used by NDTV much before Zee News used the said note and the information was freely available online. The link to the said news article published online by NDTV is:

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cheat-sheet/coal-scandal-final-report-by-inter-ministerial-group-by-september-10-262227

Also on 3rd September 2012 www.niticentral.com published a news report namely Coalgate: 53 of 60 blocks to be cancelled allotted by UPA and it is further quoted that NDTV had stated it had access to a internal note of IMG. NITI-CENTRAL in their article stated that:“……According to an NDTV report, an internal note of the inter-ministerial group accessed by the channel says that the cancellations that it recommends could defuse the current crisis. The panel, set up in June this year, also stated that production in the 60 blocks that it has identified for non-performance is not likely to start operating by March 2013.”

The copy of the screen shot of niticentral website published a news report namely Coalgate: 53 of 60 blocks to be cancelled allotted by UPA are available on request. The link to the said page is:

http://www.niticentral.com/2012/09/coalgate-53-of-60-blocks-to-be-cancelled-allotted-by-upa.html

ZNL counsel Vijay Aggarwal said “it is evident from the above that whole media and through media the country is well aware and have access to these documents, thus the said documents are not forged as alleged in the FIR.”

“There could have been some sense if the allegation in the FIR is that CAG report itself was not a public document and anyone could not access that and the only place from where the viewer will get to know about the documents is through our show telecasted on 19th October, 2012. But that the draft CAG report became leaked to the press in March 2012 and further was in the knowledge of the public through various media reports. Further the CAG Report was officially released on 17th August, 2012 as tabled before the Parliament and further it was uploaded on the website of CAG, the link of the same is

http://saiindia.gov.in/english/home/Our_Products/Audit_Report/Government_Wise/union_audit/recent_reports/union_performance/2012_2013/Commercial/Report_No_7/Report_No_7.html

(uploaded on 17.08.2012),” Mr Aggarwal stated.

“While investigating the first FIR no. 240 of 2012 as it is clear from the averment made in the first FIR that all this has been done in order to extort money as per the allegations and which is also written on page no. 4 first line of the FIR no. 240 of 2012 so when the purpose of the two is the same this could have also been stated to the police in earlier FIR itself and they could have added the section if required,” Mr Aggarwal pointed out.

Thus “NO OFFENCE OF FORGERY AGAINST THE ACCUSED IS MADE OUT AND ADMITTEDLY Zee News IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF THE ALLEGED FORGED DOCUMENTS AND THE ALLEGED DOCUMENTS ARE ONLY THE PRINT OUT OF SOME REPORT:

Because no offence of forgery is made out against the accused persons as per the allegations made in the FIR. Even as per the allegations no offence of forgery as alleged in the FIR is made out as the section is only attracted if the alleged documents is prepared by the accused persons and admittedly the present alleged are not the maker or author of the said documents,” Mr Aggarwal stated.

Note To Editors: Scribd is a document-sharing website that allows users to post documents of various formats, and embed them into a web page using its iPaper format. Scribd was founded by Trip Adler, Tikhon Bernstam, and Jared Friedman in 2006. Scribd's major competitors are Docstoc, edocr, WePapers, Issuu. Scribd was launched from a San Francisco apartment in March 2007 and quickly grew in traffic. In 2008, it ranked as one of the top 20 social media sites according to Comscore. Over 150 publishers including Random House, Wiley, Workman, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,Pearson, Harvard University Press and Stanford University Press are now associated with Scribd. Over 100 media companies now use the service. The Report of the Justice Verma Commission released yesterday is on scribd.com.