In 2016, R K Pachauri had claimed that media houses had ‘deliberately and contemptuously’ disobeyed court orders restricting them from publishing claims against him related to sexual harassment allegations. Appearing for Arnab Goswami, who was with Times Now in 2016, senior advocate Malvika Trivedi submitted before a single judge bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora that Goswami had filed his affidavit on April 28 tendering his “unconditional apology”. (Express archive) The Delhi High Court discharged Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami after he tendered an “unconditional apology” in a 2016 contempt case filed by R K Pachauri, the former executive vice-chairman of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), against certain media houses. Pachauri, who passed away in 2020, had moved the high court stating that certain media houses and journalists had “published articles and aired interviews” violating a February 17, 2015, interim order passed by another bench of the high court in a lawsuit which was clarified by an order on February 18, 2015. Pachauri had claimed that the media houses had “deliberately and contemptuously” disobeyed the court’s earlier orders restricting them from publishing the claims against him about sexual harassment allegations. He was represented by advocate Ashish Dixit in the high court. Appearing for Goswami, who was with Times Now in 2016, senior advocate Malvika Trivedi submitted before a single judge bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora that Goswami had filed his affidavit on April 28 tendering his “unconditional apology”. She said that the broadcasts, which have been complained of in the contempt petition “were aired under a bona fide belief that the same are not prohibited as per order dated 18.02.2015 passed in CS (OS) No. 425/2015”. The counsel appearing for Economic Times and Raghav Ohri submitted that “without entering into the merits and maintainability of the allegations made against” his clients had filed affidavits “tendering their unconditional apology to this court”. He also submitted that the articles in question were published under the “bona fide belief that the same were permitted in terms of the Court’s clarification order dated 18.02.2015”. On May 22, Justice Arora said, “…There is no allegation of any further alleged violation of the said orders by the said respondents after the filing of the contempt petition. Considering the fact that the Respondent Nos. 2, 3 and 5 have at the outset tendered their written unconditional apology by way of their respective affidavits and have admittedly not published any further articles or aired broadcasts in contravention of the ad-interim orders, this court accepts the said apology. Accordingly, the Respondent Nos. 2, 3 and 5 are discharged and the present petition is disposed of with respect to the said respondents.” With respect to NDTV founder Prannoy Roy, who was added as a party to the contempt plea based on a February 14, 2016, article on its website, senior advocate Siddharth Aggarwal representing Roy said that NDTV Ltd was not a party to the lawsuit where the orders were passed. He said that the orders passed in the lawsuit could only bind the parties therein and were not issued against the world at large; and since NDTV Ltd. was not a party to the said suit, the said order could not be binding on it. Justice Arora perused NDTV’s article and said that it is “satisfied that there is no violation of the ad-interim order dated 18.02.2015”. “The stand of the deceased petitioner as regards the complaint of the aggrieved person is duly reported therein. Pertinently, the content of the said article dated 14.02.2016 duly records the denial of the allegations by the deceased petitioner. The contents of the article would fall within the realm of fair reporting. Accordingly, the present petition against Respondent no. 4 is dismissed,” the high court said, closing the proceedings in the matter.