Zee Group denies Naveen Jindal's allegations

The industrialist has alleged that the news channel sought advertisement commitments worth crores of rupees

Zee television group today denied the allegation made by industrialist and Congress MP Naveen Jindal against the channel that it had sought advertisement commitments worth crores of rupees.

"This kind of allegation has happened in the past and may happen in the future. It doesn't make any difference to us and we will stick to the truth. These are all pressure tactics," Zee Entertainment Enterprises Managing Director and Chief Executive Punit Goenka told reporters here.

Goenka was talking to reporters here after launching ZeeQ, the first edutainment channel from the group, aimed at catering to needs of children in the 1-14 age group.

Last week, Naveen Jindal had filed a police complaint against Zee News charging that its senior journalists had demanded "advertisement commitments" worth crores of rupees to block airing a negative story about the company's alleged involvement in the scam-tainted coal block allocations.

Subsequently, Zee News also alleged that Jindal misbehaved with a team of its reporters after they sought clarifications from him on the allegations levelled against his company for alleged irregularities in allocation of coal bocks.

Zee Group Chairman Subhash Chandra had also said his journalists were not involved in any wrongdoing and asserted that the accusations were false.