NewsClick Case : Supreme Court To Hear Plea Of Chief Editor Prabir Purkayastha & HR Head Against Arrest In UAPA Case Tomorrow

The Supreme Court today while hearing the plea by News Click Chief Editor Prabir Purkayastha petition challenging his arrest by the Delhi Police under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) adjourned the matter to tomorrow. The plea of Human Resources head Amit Chakraborty was also listed today before the Apex Court. The UAPA case was registered following allegations of the news portal receiving money for pro-China propaganda.

When the matter came up before the bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra today, the bench said they wished to peruse the file. 

Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Devadatt Kamat appeared for Purkayastha and Chakraborty respectively.

Last week, the Delhi High Court had dismissed the pleas filed by Purkayastha and Chakraborty challenging the trial court order remanding them to seven days of police custody in the case. The High Court had upheld their 7 days of police remand. The duo has been under judicial custody, since October 10 which is expiring on October 20.

The arrests were made by the Delhi Police on October 3 following widespread raids carried out at the office of the NewsClick and the residences of its editors and reporters. The main ground of challenge raised by the petitioners was that the arrest was vitiated as they were not informed of the grounds of arrest in writing. They were not supplied with the copy of the FIR until they approached the Court and got an order to that effect. They placed reliance on the recent judgment of the Supreme Court in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India which quashed the arrests by the Enforcement Directorate in a case for not furnishing the grounds of the arrest in writing.

Delhi High Court Ruling

Before the High Court Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for Purkayastha had submitted that the NewsClick founder was not supplied with the grounds of arrest. Taking the court through the allegations against Purkayastha and others in the UAPA case, Sibal also claimed that 'not a penny' was received by them from China.

On the other hand, appearing for the Delhi Police, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta had submitted that the arrested persons were in fact “informed” about the grounds of arrest. However, he said that it is an admitted fact that the grounds of arrest were not supplied to the duo.

While dismissing Purkayastha’s petition, the Delhi High Court had said that there was no procedural infirmity or violation of the provisions of the Section 43B of the UAPA or the Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India in the matter.

“In the present case too, the offences which are alleged, fall within the ambit of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and directly impact the stability, integrity and sovereignty of the country and are of utmost importance since they would affect the national security,” the High Court had said.

The High Court had observed that nothing was placed on record to demonstrate that the timelines as averred in the petition were factually correct in nature or even to suggest otherwise.

“In case the argument of the petitioner about non-furnishing of grounds of arrest is taken to be true, then it is inexplicable as to how the petitioner had, on 04.10.2023, even before receiving the copy of the present FIR, gained the knowledge that the present FIR was in the nature of a second FIR registered on the basis of the same allegations and transactions which were leveled against him by the EOW/ECIR in the previous FIR regarding offences under PMLA,” the court said.

The High Court observed that Purkayastha’s counsel was provided with the remand application as also was heard, though telephonically by the Special Judge, before passing the remand order.

“It is intriguing that the petitioner admits to have met his counsel in the evening hours of 04.10.2023 also, albeit, after seeking permission from the learned Special Judge for such meeting, yet, there is no averment on record to demonstrate as to what effective steps were taken by the counsel for the petitioner even after that. This petition was filed on 06.10.2023, almost 3 days after the date of arrest and 2 days after the remand proceedings and there is no explanation forthcoming on that count,” the High Court had said.

Background

The allegations against the NewsClick founder came to light after a New York Times report published on August 5th alleged that online media outlet NewsClick had received funds from China to create an “anti-India” atmosphere.

This was followed by a series of raids by the Delhi police into the residences of journalists and writers, both past and present, associated with Newsclick.

A statement was issued by the news portal claiming that it was not provided with a copy of the FIR, or informed about the exact particulars of the offences with which it was charged.

“Electronic devices were seized from the Newsclick premises and homes of employees, without any adherence to due process such as the provision of seizure memos, hash values of the seized data, or even copies of the data. Newsclick’s office has also been sealed in a blatant attempt at preventing us from continuing our reporting,” the statement said.

It added that Newsclick strongly condemns the actions of a Government that “refuses to respect journalistic independence, and treats criticism as sedition or anti-national propaganda.”

“Newsclick has been targeted by a series of actions by various agencies of the Government of India since 2021. Its offices and residences of officials have been raided by the Enforcement Directorate, the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police and the Income Tax Department. All devices, laptops, gadgets, phones, etc. have been seized in the past. All emails and communications have been analysed under the microscope. All bank statements, invoices, expenses incurred and sources of funds received by Newsclick in the last several years have been scrutinised by different agencies of the Government from time to time,” it added.

Prior to the NYT report, NewsClick was facing another investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) based on allegations of money laundering. This had initiated multiple raids by ED into the premises of the editors and the case is still pending.

Case Title: Prabir Purkayastha v State (NCT of Delhi) Diary No. 42896-2023