Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashutosh, eminent journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and Arunodaya Mukherjee ‘surrendered’ in ACJM-3 court on Friday for airing a ‘fake sting operation’ in 2006 on news channels IBN7 and CNN-IBN (both channels have now been re-branded as News18 and CNN-News18 respectively, and are currently part of the Reliance-owned Network18 group). The Court had in the past, ordered that a warrant be issued against the accused.

We reported earlier about how Dr Agarwal, against whom this sting operation was conducted, had claimed that this fake operation had ruined his life and career and has been fighting the battle to regain his life and reputation in these 12 years.

As reported by Jagran the three accused immediately submitted their bail applications after surrendering and the court sanctioned the same.

As reproduced by Opindia, while speaking to portal Bhadas4media.com, Dr Agarwal had alleged that Jamshed Khan, whom he refers to as a blackmailer, had concocted the fake sting operation and given it to IBN7. He further alleged that the channels IBN7 and CNN-IBN were newly launched and were looking for sensational stories, which is why they continuously aired the program for almost a week in July 2006. This led to an inquiry against Dr Agarwal. He was working as an orthopaedic surgeon at District Hospital, Gautam Budh Nagar at that time.

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Aggrieved by the alleged defamation and hardships he had to face, Agarwal issued a legal notice to all the concerned parties in November 2006. In this long drawn battle against Rajdeep Sardesai, Ashutosh and others, Dr Agarwal has been fighting at various levels, from the Allahabad High court, Delhi High court to the Supreme court.

After Allahabad High Court granted relief to seven out of nine accused, Dr Agarwal had approached the Supreme court for the same.

In February this year, it was reported that the Supreme Court had allowed cases to be followed up against Rajdeep Sardesai, Ashutosh, Raghav Bahl, and others, which Dr Agarwal considered another step towards his victory.

According to Jagran, the Supreme court, in its order, said that the case should be taken up by the lower court, and had also, previously ordered for issuing warrants against those accused. The three accused, as reported by Jagran surrendered before the court on Friday and were immediately granted bail thereafter. Other two accused, namely, Sanjay Roy Chaudhary and Harsh Chawla had surrendered in court two days ago.