Zeegate is the latest burning issue in India which reveals the dark side of Indian Media along with  its nexus with Corporates and Politicians. The issuw which started with the revelations of Coalgate Scam ended up into a separate scam dealing with Paid Media. Though it primarily involved Zee TV and Jindal Group, many other  big names figured in the whole campaign.
Coalgate and Zeegate
In September 2012  it was shown in Media  that Jindal Steel and Power Ltd owned by Jindal Group under the leadership of Congress MP Naveen Jindal was highly benifitted in COALGATE Scam. JSPL  gained by making and selling power at high prices.
The coal blocks allotted to Jindal Power Limited (JPL) in 1998, during the NDA regime, were followed by a slew of allocations under the UPA, which have culminated in making the Jindal Group the largest beneficiary of coal block allocations. It has reserves of 2,580 million tonnes of coal, while the second largest beneficiary in the private sector has just 1,500 million tonnes.
But despite having the cheapest coal, Jindal sold power at the highest prices — Rs 3.85 per unit in 2011-2012, compared to Lanco’s Rs 3.67 and NTPC’s Rs 2.20. The previous year, JPL had sold power at an even higher rate of Rs 4.30 per unit. The combination of cheap coal and high power prices explains why Jindal posted Rs 1,765 crore as profits, or 60% of its revenues, while Lanco made a profit of just Rs 155 crore, just 12% of its revenues.
The first Controversy
It is alleged Jindal manhandled  Zee News Reporters in September 2012 after it asked some uncomfortable questions on the coal block allocation issue. Following the incident, Jindal remained unavailable for comment even as the Congress apologized on behalf of the party.
The incident took place when a team of journalists from Zee News caught up with the owner of JSPL at a function in Le Meridien hotel. The channel claimed that its reporter sought clarifications from Jindal on the allegations levelled against his company in the coal block scam.
Meeting of Jindal and Zee Officials
Jindal said the Zee group began showing reports on September 7 on their channels against the company owned by Jindal group, after which a team from Jindal Steel started talking to the channels.
“Initially, Zee Business and Zee News demanded Rs.20 crore from Jindal Steel in the Sep 10 meeting but in the second meeting with Jindal Steel, Sudhir Chaudhary demanded Rs.100 crore (Rs.20 crore per year),” said Jindal.
“After the last meeting with Sameer Ahluwalia and Sudhir Chaudhary on Sep 19 when we were not ready to give them money, the media group again started running stories on Sep 24,” he said.
On Oct 19, the media group also started accusing Jindal Steel of offering them bribes to stop airing of reports on coal block allocations, Jindal said.
“When News Broadcasters Association (NBA) called the media group for clarification, they said they organised meetings with the Jindal group for a sting operation. But they could not give proper evidences to NBA in support of their statement,” said Jindal
The Press Conference
On 25 October 2012 Naveen Jindal held a press conference in which he showed video evidence where it was clear that some officials of  Zee News and Zee Business TV channels  tried to extort a sum Rs 100 crore from Jindal in return for not running the story of Jindal being involved in the Coal scam said the company has lodged a formal police complaint.
Jindal told the press conference convened to release a purported video in support of his allegations that Zee Group’s editor had sought advertisement commitments for the channels to stop airing reports related to a coal block allocation scandal in which Jindal Steel is said to be involved.
“Sudhir Chaudhary, editor of the group, told our team they will continue to defame us if we did not agree to pay Rs.20 crore per year worth advertisements,” Jindal said.
“The initial demand of Rs.20 crore then went up to Rs.100 crore,” Jindal said.
Footage of Reverse Sting Operation by Jindal
Aftermath
Chaudhary had rubbished the allegations as “fabrication” and described it as “pressure tactics” to prevent the channel from doing expose stories.
“We have done a series of stories on coal scam based on official papers. This is a retaliation to our relentless campaign against corruption,” he had said.
Zee News sent a Rs.150 crore defamation notice to the Congress MP, who too had filed a Rs.200 crore case against the media conglomerate, claiming the TV channel had tried to extort money from his company
Arrest of Zee Editors
On October 2, Jindal Steel filed its complaint and the police registered the first information report (FIR) Â against Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra, Punit Goyanka, Sudhir Chaudhry and Samir Ahluwalia.
On November 27, Sudhir Chaudhary, head of Zee News, and Samir Ahluwalia, head of Zee Business, were arrested by Crime Branch of Delhi Police.
Zee News vehemently denied all allegations of extortion levelled against it and described the arrests of the duo journalists as a “crude and direct attack on the freedom of the press”.
While the matter is sub-judice before the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay, to circumvent the judicial process and the orders of the Hon’ble Mumbai High Court, the Delhi police at the behest of its Congress MP orchestrated arrests of two Senior Editors of Zee News, the Zee News Statement said
With inputs from Agencies