Who could have thought Barkha Dutt would be at loggerheads with a senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal, especially after being thick as thieves for a very long time.
She has moved the Patiala House court against him and his wife Promila Sibal, and their company Analog Media Private Limited.
She is demanding damages of over Rs 74 lakh with 18 per cent interest, after the sudden shutting down of Tiranga TV, an English news channel, in July.
Barkha alleged, she was recruited for the news channel and was told that it would continue to function for at least two years. However, within 2 to 3 months, she was asked to terminate her contract with the company.
She said the channel would shut down because return of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power meant the promoters losing all incentive to continue running the channel.
She also alleged that the channel was launched on January 26, instead of November 12 as promised, because the team hired to start the channel was constantly rejigged in an arbitrary and capricious fashion.
This is not the first time Barkha has been surrounded with controversies. The biggest being the Niira Radia case. She had alleged that NDTV had received (Rs 450 crore) as loan, within a couple of weeks of the tape conversation.
A HIGHLY "optimistic" Barkha would have expected an early hearing, but the court postponed the matter to January 9, a far off date. For many, this isn't a surprise as Sibal and Co, are in this profession for donkey's years, having Page 3 connections with, from advocates to the judges themselves, but also had a say in recommending judges in various courts across India while in power.
This high-profile advocate-cum-Congress leader also has the distinction of defending Brajesh Pandey, a Congress leader and brother of NDTV Hindi News anchor and Ramon Magsaysay awardee Ravish Kumar, who allegedly had raped a Dalit girl along with the main accused Nikhil Priyadarshi.
The victim was later forced to marry her rapist - Priyadarshi - who is also son of a Congress leader, to settle the case. The girl is daughter of former Congress minister.
WHY DID BARKHA AND SIBAL JOIN HANDS?
They came together to influence the 2019 general elections by starting a "fake news" channel, which provided her a platform from where she could vent her anger after losing her NDTV job ever since BJP came to power in 2014.
A sundry of fake news were aired, slamming India's demonetisation and EVMs.
Sample these: In its first Facebook broadcast, on January 16, the channel (TNN) claimed 2015 Gurdaspur terror attack was carried out by the Indian government to win Bihar assembly elections.
On January 21, the channel Facebook broadcast live a press conference claiming mass manipulation of EVMs in India.
An investigation by India Today's Anti-Fake News War Room, however, had dismissed these allegations as misleading and raised doubts over TNN World's credibility.
On March 26, April 9 and April 17, Sibal addressed a series of press conferences to allege money laundering by the BJP post demonetisation, based on the channel's video clippings.
On March 26, Congress leaders Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, JMM's Hemant Soren, RJD's Manoj Jha and Sharad Yadav, addressed a joint press conference in New Delhi, showing a purported sting operation carried out by TNN.
They alleged that a Gujarat BJP worker had transacted demonitised currencies for a commission of 40 per cent past the deadline for bank exchange.
In yet another press conference, Sibal showed a series of TNN video clippings alleging that BJP's top leadership ran a money-exchange operation with the help of government officials including the RAW.
All these fake news originated from the foreign soil. It was staged managed by a Romanian national Dina Biciin, who was the only director looking after TNN.
Later it came to light that Dina had opened another company named Eva's Tantric Massage Ltd in London after the channel was shut.
Eva's website stated that it offered no health or well-being related services but provided "mutual love with girls from Spain, Brazil, Belarus, Moldova, England, Lithuania and Russia".
PROBABLY, these are the best times the nationalists are witnessing, with the thick thieves - The Lutyens media, Congress and The Left - are a divided lot and fighting among themselves, due to the iron hand unleashed by Modi government for their wrongdoings, which he could do because of the resounding mandate people gave him in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Surely, there are many more skeletons to tumble out of the closet in days to come. The right thinking people, should not do much to rein them in, but to sit back and wait for their stinging revelations in days to come. Insha Allah ...
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