NEW DELHI: A Delhi Court is to hear on 14 January a fresh complaint filed by Zee News against steel magnate Naveen Jindal for allegedly calling News Broadcasting Standards Authority Chairman J S Verma who was considering the complaint against the news channel.

The matter was mentioned before CBI Special Judge Dharmesh Sharma alleging failure on the part of the Central Bureau of Investigation to take action against Jindal after receiving a complaint. According to the complaint, Justice Verma had also taken umbrage to Jindal?s conduct.

In another development, Judge Namita Kumari in the Patiala House Courts today fixed 8 March for pre-summoning evidence on the Criminal Defamation Case by Zee Business Editor Samir Ahluwalia against Jindal Steel and Power Limited, Jindal and 14 others relating to a series of exposes in the Coalgate scam.

The Criminal defamation has been filed against JSPL, and Jindal, Anand Goel, Haigreev Khaitan, Vikrant Gujral, Ravi Uppal, Arun Kumar Purwar, Ratan Jindal, Sushil Kumar Maroo, Sudarshan Kumar Garg, Hardip Singh Wirk, Ram Vinay Shah, Arun Kumar, Dinesh Kumar Saraogi, Tej Kishen Sadhu, and Rajeev Bhaduria.

Vijay Aggarwal, Counsel for Zee News Limited, said: ?The Court has taken cognizance of the offence of defamation which is punishable with two years of imprisonment under Section 500 IPC. The defamation against my client Mr. Samir Ahluwalia is based on false statements made during the press conference addressed by Mr. Naveen Jindal on 25 October 2012.?

Sudhir Chaudhary and Ahluwalia have earlier been implicated in a case relating to a series of exposes in the Coalgate scam involving Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal. The two Zee editors claimed that they wanted to expose Jindal?s attempt of silencing media coverage of Coalgate through a Rs One billion advertisement contract.

NEW DELHI: The central government has directed all cable and direct-to-home (DTH) television platforms not to carry SS TV channel for a fortnight from the midnight of 15 January to the midnight of 30 January for telecasting the trailer of adult film ?Friends with benefits? on 30 September 2011.

Television transmission platforms have also been prohibited from carrying Zing and Enterr 10 television channels for one day from midnight of 12 January for telecasting adult films in violation of the programme code.

The orders follow decisions of the inter-ministerial committee of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry that the telecasts were in violation of Rule 6(t) (n) and Rule 6(t)(o) of the programme code under Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and rules framed there under.

The SS TV channel (then SS Music Channel) had telecast a trailer of adult feature film ?Friends with Benefits? even though it was not certified by CBFC for telecast on TV channels.

While Zing TV had telecast the adult film ?Hawas? in January, the Enterr 10 channel telecast three Hindi feature films -- ?Musafir? on 29 September 2011, ?Plan? on 19 October 2011 and ?Aashiq Banaya Apnne? on 31 January 2012.

In the case of ?Hawas?, the directive noted that the film showed visuals of passionate love making and kissing scenes between a couple, who were shown to be clinging to each other and writhing in bed in an explicit portrayal of sexual desires overpowering them. Such a portrayal is distinctly meant for adult audience, for which CBFC had appropriately given "A" certification to the said film.

In all cases, show cause notices were issued to the channels and their replies and counter-replies considered before the action was announced. The committee had also given the channels a hearing before finalising the orders on Tuesday.