Sudhir Chaudhary (journalist)

In 2007 Live India ran a sting operation on a Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya teacher, Uma Khurana, and called her a pimp for forcing students into prostitution. As a result she was beaten up by a mob and sent into judicial custody thereafter. Sudhir Chaudhary was the CEO of Live India at the time, he said "The entire sting is not fake but yes there are weak links".[8][9][10] During the sting, a journalist Rashmi Singh, posed as a schoolgirl.[11][12] The court let Uma Khurana go and subsequently Uma Khuara withdrew her complaint and settled the matter directly with the media house, "Since the matter has been settled/compromised between me and the channel and Chaudhary, I do not want to pursue this case against other accused TV reporter also. I am withdrawing this complaint against all accused."[13][14]

In November 2012, Chaudhary was arrested, alongside his colleague, Sameer Ahluwalia on charges of extortion.[15] This followed a complaint that had been filed by Congress MP and businessman, Naveen Jindal. Jindal had alleged that the two journalists had tried to extort Rs. 100 Crore worth of advertisements from his company in exchange for dropping stories that linked the Jindal Group with the Coalgate scam. The two were sent to 14-day judicial custody in Tihar jail and were ultimately released on bail.[16][17] The Broadcast Editors Association suspended Chaudhary as its Treasurer in the wake of these charges.[18] Having scrutinised video footage from the incident, it determined that Chaudhary had acted in a manner prejudicial to the interests and objectives of the Association. In July 2016, the Supreme Court ordered Chaudhary and Ahluwalia to provide voice samples to the investigating agencies to further the investigation. In July 2018, the Jindal Group wrote to the investigating agencies requesting them to withdraw the allegations against the journalists and file a closure report in the case.[19]

Chaudhary accused Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra of plagiarising speech of Truman Longman pointing out early signs of fascism in India while both Longman and Moitra had denied of plagiarising the speech.[20][21] Mahua Moitra filed criminal defamation case against Sudhir Chaudhary after which Chaudhary on his daily prime time show accepted that only a part of Mahua Moitra's speech was broadcast and showed his regrets.[22] Zee Media also filed a defamation case against her for calling it 'chor' and 'paid' news.[23]

On April 10, on Zee News, Chaudhary (according to Al Jazeera) openly accused Muslims of impeding India’s coronavirus war.[24] Chaudhary said on his show DNA that the “Tablighi Jamaat betrayed the nation.”[25]

In May 2020, Kerala Police filed a first information report against Chaudhary for his March 11 broadcast of DNA, in which Chaudhary discusses the "types of jihads", which were criticized as Islamophobic.[26]