The Ministry on Friday issued a statement decrying the way the channel, NewsX, allegedly terminated the services of some of its staffers after some dismissed journalists, led by the channel’s former executive editor Avirook Sen, met Minister P R Dasmunsi complaining of “injustice” and “shocking treatment.”

“Keeping in view the independence and autonomy of the media, neither the government nor the ministry ever interferes and shall not intervene in the internal affairs of any media house or channel. But the manner in which the eminent editors have been treated and the rights of media personnel have been reportedly infringed upon is really a matter of great concern for free and fair journalism in the country,” said Dasmunsi in a statement.

“The minister has been apprised of the serious allegations including source of channel funding which Minister is not competent to react, and accordingly, has referred the matter to the concerned desk of the Finance Ministry to ascertain the facts through their investigation wing,” said the statement from the I&B Ministry.

Sen told The Indian Express that he plans to take legal action against the channel for his “summary dismissal.” He claimed that the issue flared up after the “management coerced one of the producers under me into resigning.”

“When I confronted them,” he said, “they went ahead and asked me to sign a resignation letter and said my official laptop, car and e-mail id were all being immediately barred and if I refuse to sign they would press criminal charges against me. I was further escorted into the newsroom with security guards. I will take legal action.”

Indrani Mukherjea, Chairperson of INX Media, of which News X is a part, said that it was an HR matter and a statement would be issued soon. The statement released by the company said: “There have been rumours in the media circles about the circumstances pertaining to the termination of the services of Mr Avirook Sen, Executive Editor, NewsX, the forthcoming English News channel of INX News private limited. We would like to state that the company was forced to summarily terminate Mr Sen’s services because he was found to be utilizing his office laptop to access pornographic content on the internet. This is violative of company policy, besides being illegal as per the law of the land. Consequently, Mr Sen’s employment agreement was terminated”.

Former editor of The Hindustan Times and columnist Vir Sanghvi was heading the channel till last week when he resigned following differences with Mukherjea. INX Media is controlled by Indrani and her husband Peter Mukherjea and the news channel was announced in October last year.