- (1.) PRESENT petition has been preferred for the relief of quashing the First Information Report dated 12.11.2010 registered at case crime No. 572 of 2010 under sections 306, 504, 120 B I.P.C PS Prem Nagar District Jhansi attended with the relief of writ of mandamus commanding the respondents not to arrest the petitioner for the aforesaid offences.
(2.) AS would transpire from the record, the first information report was lodged by the respondent no. 4 namely, Savitri Devi, who happens to be the mother of the deceased Laxman Ahirwar alleging that her son had tied nuptial knots with one Smt Anita on 1.2.2010 and that after sometime of marriage, there was connubial discord between the husband and wife and as a result, Smt Anita deserted her matrimonial house in a huff. Thereafter, the deceased endeavoured hard to win her back to her matrimonial house but she refused to relent. In the meantime, it is alleged, co accused contacted the deceased and insisted with him to take aid of the Reality show known as "Rakhi Ka Insaf" being exhibited on NDTV Imagine conveying at the same time that it would resolve discord between him and his estranged wife. It is further alleged that the deceased fell prey to the persistent persuasions of the co-accused and he agreed to participate in the Reality show and consequently, he completed all the formalities before participating in the programme. It is further alleged that on 13.9.2010, the deceased alongwith other family members left for Mumbai and when they arrived at Film Studio situated in Goregaon at Mumbai, Smt Aneeta and her family members were already present there. While the programme was being recorded, Rakhi Sawant Anchor of the programme, it is alleged, used the offensive language against the deceased and at one stage, called him impotent (NAMARD) without any valid proof besides insulting him in public. The aforesaid Anchor also maligned in public Balbir brother of the first informant of his being involved in illicit relationship while using extremely derogatory language against other family members present in the entire programme. When the family members present there remonstrated with the Anchor asking her to desist from using offensive and highly derogatory and abusive language, her bodyguards jumped in the fray and they also hurled unbecoming and offensive language and manhandled the deceased and family members present in the programme. The aforesaid programme was telecast on TV on 23.10.2010 which was viewed by the entire public of the country. It is further alleged that her son became distraught and distressed on account of his portrayal in unpleasant light in the show and as a result, he was unnerved and slided into trauma and began to dread his own shadow and his condition took a turn for the worse so much so that he hardly slept during night and had developed aversion to the food and whenever he was tried to be mollified, he cried saying that Rakhi Sawant had made his life hell and his life is worse than a death and that he has no desire to live any further in this world and solicited to let him die in peace. He was taken to medical college Jhansi for treatment where he was diagnosed as being tension stricken. It is further alleged that his son was living a normal life before participating in the programme and during the programme he was hurt by the offensive and derogatory words used by Rakhi Sawant and as a result, her son pined away to death. We have heard Sri Gopal Chaturvedi, learned Senior Advocate appearing for the petitioner and also Sri Ali Hasan learnedcounsel appearing for the complainant respondent no.4. We have also heard learned AGA for the State Authorities and perused the materials on record. To begin with, Sri Gopal Chaturvedi Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Rahul Agarwal and Sri Shishir Tandon appearing for the petitioner canvassed that ingredients of section 306 IPC are not at all disclosed from a punctilious reading of the FIR and in connection with this submission, he drew attention to the agreement (Annexure 2 to the writ petition) that the deceased and his family members had agreed to participate in the programme attended with further submission that before recording of the programme began, they had agreed and they had entered into agreement and even after the programme had been recorded, the participants were again enquired about objection, if any, in respect of contents of the programme but even at that stage, there was no remonstration or objection from any one of them and they even signed personal release letters and evinced their satisfaction which are being annexed to the petitions as Annexures 4,5 and 6. The learned counsel emphatically denied the allegations that after the programme had been recorded on 16th Sept 2010, the production house had not received any communication. It is also stated that promos were aired from Ist Oct 2010 on the TV channel showing clips of the episode and even then there was no objection, protestation or query from any quarter. It is further alleged that Laxman died on 10.11.2010 as a natural death and further that no post mortem is shown to have been conducted to prove the facts otherwise. The learned counsel also denied that there was any vestige of instigation so as to lead the deceased to commit suicide. In so far as petitioner is concerned, it is argued that she was the anchor of the programme. In para 4 of the petition, the averments made are as follows: "That, the petitioner states that the background facts are that sometime in the year 2010, the TV channel Imagine TV conceived an idea of airing a reality show later named as "RAKHI KA INSAAF' in which the petitioner would be anchoring the show and inviting citizens from various parts of the country who had inter alia disagreements, family problems in relation to matrimony, property or such other several disputes,and who would participate in the show and who wanted to share their grievances on television and leave it to the petitioner to listen to their grievances in the presence of a large numbers of audience invited from various walks of life in the country and trry and resolve the disputes, which would be recorded and broadcast on air. The programme would be pre-recorded at a venue provided by the Production House well before the said Programme was to be aired by the TV Channel."
(3.) IN para 5, the averments made are as follows: "That the petitioner states that the Production House invited the participants who were willing to and wanted to air their grievances in the presence of an audience and had agreed to be part of the programme. Towards that end, participants entered into separate agreements with the Production House wherein they voluntarily agreed to participate in the Reality Show, and subject themselves to any questions being asked in the Reality show and further agreed to have the Programme recorded with the various questions and answers that they were being subjected to and record their grievances and the attempt by the petitioner to resolve the differences and air the entire pre-recorded Programme on IV....." Here we would not flinch from mentioning that agreeing to be subjected to any questions and answer does not include using derogatory language and calling a person impotent.;