new delhi the supreme court on friday protected tv news anchor rohit ranjan from arrest in firs lodged against him in several states for a misleading telecast relating to congress leader rahul gandhi giving him relief which it had denied to a similarly placed nupur sharma a week ago for her allegedly blasphemous statement against the prophetsenior advocate sidharth luthra and advocate ruby singh ahuja who sought relief for ranjan did not have to labour hard except for citing the sc verdict in the tt antony case which mandated that a person cannot be subjected to multiple firs in various states for the same offence and that all firs could be clubbed at the place where the first fir was lodged luthra told a bench of justices indira banerjee and jk maheshwari that the clip in question has been withdrawn from virtual media and the anchor as well as the channel had immediately tendered an unconditional apology within minutes the bench wound up the hearing and passed the order protecting the tv anchor from arrest in any of the firs lodged against him anywhere in india in connection with the misleading telecast appearing for nupur senior advocate maninder singh too had cited the near identical rulings of the sc in the antony case as well as in the cases of arnab goswami and satinder bhasin to seek clubbing of firs and protection from arrest but the sc had come down like a ton of bricks to scathingly criticise nupur deny her any relief and said that her utterances resulted in the killing of tailor kanhaiya lal in udaipur by two muslim mengranting relief to ranjan the bench said in the meanwhile there will be an interim order restraining the respondentauthorities states from taking coercive steps against the petitioner to take him into custody in connection with the anchoringtelecast of dna on july 1 2022ranjan has sought quashingclubbing of almost identical criminal complaintsfirs filed across the country against him and had pleaded for a stay of his arrest by any state police in his petition filed through karanjawala co solicitors the tv anchor said his news show inadvertently misattributed certain quotes and the error was immediately rectified an unconditional apology was tendered by him and the news channel and the news was withdrawn even prior to registrationfiling of any fircomplainthe said due to numerous firs already registered multiple complaints filed in various states which may also be converted into firs the petitioner is being hounded by police from several states for an act which was neither intentional nor motivated