Citing a ministry official, the broadcaster said the ministry was suspected of delaying the operations to win favors from Moon in terms of expanding its staff number and affiliated organizations.

SBS later offered an apology to Moon and the bereaved families and deleted all the relevant reports on its website.

Moon's liberal Democratic Party immediately dismissed the report as groundless and filed a petition with the prosecution.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said it has allocated the case to its public security department, which is in charge of investigations into election law violations.

Prosecutors said the case will be dealt with in accordance with the routine procedures, though some watchers forecast a full-scale investigation could be put off until after the May 9 presidential election.

Following the broadcaster's apology, the ministry has said that the official quoted in the news report just delivered what he read on the Internet.

The National Election Commission said it has opened its own probe into the TV report to determine whether the broadcaster or the official violated election laws by disclosing false information to prevent the election of a particular candidate.

In a related move, conservative presidential candidate Hong Joon-pyo and his Liberty Korea Party have filed a separate petition, asking prosecutors to open investigations into whether Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Kim Young-suk and ministry officials violated the principle of political neutrality in elections.

Hong and the conservative party also asked prosecutors to investigate whether Moon's camp strong-armed SBS into deleting the Sewol ferry report and issuing a public apology. (Yonhap)