Over the past four months, Bollywood was a sitting duck as a section of television anchors — who believe that the loudest is the truest — referred to it as "druggies", "scum" and "the dirtiest industry in the country". On Monday, in an unprecedented move, four cine bodies and 34 studios — including Aamir Khan Productions, Ajay Devgn Ffilms, Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment and Zoya Akhtar's Tiger Baby Digital — moved the Delhi High Court, seeking to restrain Republic TV and Times Now from making "irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks" against the industry. The lawsuit sought a direction to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and journalist Pradeep Bhandari, Times Now editor-in-chief Rahul Shivshankar and group editor Navika Kumar, instructing them to restrain from interfering with the right to privacy of persons associated with the industry. It also called to pull down all the defamatory content published by them against Bollywood.

Rahul Shivshankar and Arnab Goswami