Mumbai: Mumbai Police’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone IX, Abhishek Trimukhe has filed a criminal defamation complaint against Republic TV’s Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, his wife and director Samyabrata Ray and parent company ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd for defamatory statements against him during a panel discussion in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case.
The panel discussion was on Rajput’s partner Rhea Chakraborty’s phone records. The complaint said that defamatory attacks were made on the 2007 batch IPS officer with the singular view of assassinating his official character and thereby causing humiliation to the Mumbai Police.
The discussion was telecast on Republic Bharat and uploaded on its YouTube channel. Arnab, it stated, very cunningly to have used Rhea’s phone records to launch a systemic attack on the Mumbai Police and called the “sensational” approach “unbecoming” of a journalist.
It stated that graphics and ticker flash was used in the show with the name and picture of Trimukhe to imply that he used his official position to help perpetrators to get away from justice.
The telecast caused him distress as he received several calls from seniors, government officials, relatives and institutions to explain the veracity of the allegations, he said in his complaint.
Mentioning a defamation case wherein Arnab and Times Now, where he was earlier employed, were directed to pay Rs. 100 crore in damages, Trimukhe called him a “habitual offender” who must be dealt with sternly.
