The complaint alleged that ANI repeatedly attributed statements to the ECI that were neither released on its official website nor shared on its verified social media platforms.
NEW DELHI — A Lucknow court has registered a complaint case against ANI Editor Smita Prakash on a complaint alleging that the agency published false news attributed to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The complaint, filed by former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Amitabh Thakur, accuses ANI of disseminating misleading information attributed to the Election Commission, which was not corroborated by any official statements on the poll body’s official website or social media channels, as reported by Live Law.
According to Thakur, this amounted to the agency “relaying/issuing false news in the name of the Commission without any official back up of any kind”.
The complainant has been directed to appear before the court on September 26 to record his statement.
In his complaint, Thakur referred to several instances in August, including the new agency’s post on X that quoted the poll body in response to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s claims of vote theft.
Thakur said that ANI published a post at 3:08 p.m. on August 7 with a purported response from the Election Commission objecting to Gandhi’s allegations, the legal news outlet reported.
However, the Election Commission later issued its official statement, first in Hindi at 5:59 p.m. and in English at 7:55 p.m., directly from its verified handle on X. The EC called Gandhi’s claims “misleading, baseless, and threatening.”
“ANI has been seen relaying…false news in the name of [the Election Commission] without any official back up of any kind,” Live Law quoted Thakur as saying. “The issue of leakage of news from ANI presents another aspect related with the functioning of ANI. It raises possibilities of illegal infiltration of ANI in the [Election Commission] system, to the extent of illegally procuring and then leaking insider information.”
He argued that this action could constitute a violation of multiple provisions under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, specifically those related to cheating and causing wrongful loss.
