On Thursday, 17 September, the Delhi High Court sought response of the Centre on actor Rakul Preet Singh's petition to stop media reports from connecting her with the alleged drug link connected to Sushant Singh Rajput's death, as per a report by PTI.
Justice Navin Chawla also issued notices to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Prasar Bharti and the Press Council of India seeking their stand on Rakul's plea.
The Delhi HC asked the authorities to take a decision on Rakul Preet's plea before the next date of hearing on 15 October. The court also expressed hope that "media houses would show restraint in their reports and would abide by the cable TV regulations, program code and various guidelines, statutory and self regulatory, while making any reports with regard to the petitioner".
Rakul Preet Singh has claimed in her plea that Sushant's partner and actor Rhea Chakraborty had already retracted the statement in which she was allegedly named and yet the media reports were connecting her to the case.
Through her petition, Rakul also stated the I&B ministry guidelines that prohibits media from running hate campaigns. The actor also said in her plea that TV channels are showing her "morphed pictures and photos from film sets to paint a narrative", to hound her, and link her to some sort of a drug gang.
Some time back, a source in the Narcotics Control Bureau had told The Quint that in the course of their investigation following Chakraborty's arrest, the names of three celebrities, Sara Ali Khan, Rakul Preet Singh and Simone Khambatta, came up. On 12 September, several reports had alleged that during the investigation, Rhea Chakraborty had named 25 Bollywood A-listers who would be summoned by the NCB for interrogation. However, the source rubbished these claims.
Rhea Chakraborty was arrested by the NCB on 8 September in a drug probe related to Sushant's death. Along with the NCB, the CBI and ED are also investigating the case.
(With inputs from PTI)
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