854 ‘paid’ news cases filed; AP tops list
New Delhi: A total of 854 ‘paid’ news cases has been detected by the Election Commission (EC) in the over 45-day period after the general elections in the country were announced on March 5. Out of the registered cases across various States, 326 instances have been found to be factual and notices have been served to candidates, officials said. The maximum cases of unethical reporatage of news items has been reported in Andhra Pradesh with 208 cases being registered out of which notices have been issued in 42 cases. In Rajasthan, there were 89 cases out of which 37 notices have been issued.In Uttar Pradesh, there were 98 cases and 64 notices were issued, while in Punjab 73 cases were detected and 41 notices issued, 61 cases were detected in Gujarat and 45 notices issued, while 118 cases were found in Maharashtra and 23 notices issued.