Enforcing Accountability: Aaj Tak, ABP News Fined By NBSA For Revealing Rape Victim’s Identity

Hindi News media channels ABP News and Aaj Tak have been fined by the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) for violating the ethics code, the Television Post reports. The NBSA, in a different case, has also rejected a complaint against NDTV 24x7 about a sting operation conducted back in August 2014.

Both ABP News and Aaj Tak have been fined Rs 1 lakh each as they had revealed the victim’s identity in the Rewari gang rape case. Both channels violated the ethics code when they provided the victim’s description.

Dr Vikash Bharadwaj and Inshani Goyal had filed the complaint against ABP News and Aaj Tak respectively and accused them of revealing the victim's identity through its telecast on 14 September 2018 and 17 September 2018, respectively.

The news channels, in their submissions on 17 January 2019, argued that the girl child had achieved great laurels in academics had become a victim of a heinous crime. During the news report, it was mentioned that she was a CBSE topper and received an award from the President.

However, in the authority’s view, the channels have revealed the identity of the victim and hence violated the “Code of Ethics, the principles of self-regulation No 4 Depiction of violence or intimidation against women and children”. The authority has also issued a warning to the duo channels and told them that further violation would result in action against the broadcasters. Both the channels have been told to remove the link or video of the said programme.

In another issue, the NBSA rejected the case filed by Dr Raj Kumar Lalwaniagainst against NDTV’s sting operation highlighting the nexus between Doctors and Pharma companies in August 2014.

Dr, Lalwani claimed that the report was distorted, edited and remaining in public, which is causing defamation, and affected his image and future employment. However, NDTV argued that the sting operation’s purpose was to expose the nexus between pharma companies and doctors, and was conducted per relevant guidelines.