Republic TV editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami has been in the spotlight for some infamous reasons for the past couple of days. In recent events, the Karnataka High Court had adduced the decision taken by the Supreme Court for granting bail to Goswami, as it granted anticipatory bail to the Managing Director of a local TV channel in the state who was being accused of extortion.

Power TV, a local Kannada channel was accused of extortion after they aired a program series that openly accused the Bhartiya Janata Party of corruption. Rakesh Shetty, the MD of Power TV was later granted an anticipatory bail from the HC after an order issued on November 18. The HC had asked Shetty for his corporation in the ongoing investigation regarding this case. Shetty was granted anticipatory bail with a bail bond of Rs. 2 lakhs.

The order issued by the HC mentioned that it is crucial for the court to execute the jurisdiction properly to ensure the protection of a citizen’s personal liberty, or else they are traveling towards the ‘path of destruction’. “This proposition of law has been laid down by the apex court in its decision in the case of Arnab Manoranjan Goswami vs the State of Maharashtra and others decided on 11.11.2020.”, the HC added.

Shetty was put on trial in Karnataka HC in October after the Bengaluru police had arrested him based on a complaint lodged by Chandrakanth Ramalingam, the director of Ramalingam Construction Company Limited. The complaint stated that he was forced to say that he had made payments to political parties for getting awards of contracts by Power TV as part of their program.

On November 5, another bench of Karnataka HC had refused the petition by Shetty saying that they would not want to interfere with the FIR lodged against him. However, the HC had asked the Bengaluru police to release back the seized equipment of the channel which kept them off air from September 29 to October 7.