New Delhi, Oct. 2 (PTI): A city court on Monday remanded a private news channel reporter, arrested in connection with an allegedly fake sting operation against a school teacher, to 14 days judicial custody.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Alok Aggarwal remanded Live India reporter Prakash Singh to judicial custody till October 14, after the Crime Branch submitted that the case was still under investigation.
However, a Metropolitan Magistrate court in Tis Hazari, granted bail to Singh in connection with the other case, in which he is charged with abetment of rioting, apart from the fake sting operation.
Arguing before the court of MM Sanjay Jindal, Murari Tiwari, Singh's counsel, argued that nothing more was to be investigated from his client. No purpose would be served by keeping him in judicial custody with hardcore criminals. There was no chance of his jumping bail.
Singh had no intention to instigate rioting, which is an essential ingredient for charging a person under section 109 (abetment to rioting). Being merely a reporter in the channel, he was only performing his duty, Tiwari argued before the court.
The Crime Branch sleuths also today took the voice sample of Singh to investigate whether the conversation which was in the tape, was actually his or not.
The court granted bail to Singh in the rioting case, after furnishing a personal bail bond of Rs 20,000 and a surety of the like amount.
However, he would be be in jail till October 14 in the case pertaining to the "fake" sting operation case which was purportedly carried out by him.
"Since the other miscreants (29 rioters) had already been released on bail, so the viable option for me was nothing but to release Singh on bail in the rioting case," the MM said in his order.
Earlier, Singh, a reporter of Live India channel that aired the sting operation on August 30, was arrested after it reportedly turned out that the girl who appeared in the video making allegations against Khurana was not a student but an aspiring journalist.
The sting had resulted in large-scale violence in the city and prompted Delhi government to first suspend Khurana and then dismiss her from service.
The other co-accused Virender Arora was also sent to judicial custody till October 14. The court had on September 10 and 15 granted bail to terminated school teacher Uma Khurana and aspiring journalist Rashmi Singh in this case.
