[Breaking] Arnab Goswami Remanded To Judicial Custody For 14 Days Till November 18 In Abetment Of Suicide Case

A court at Alibag in Maharashtra remanded Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of the Republic TV, to 14 days judicial custody till November 18 in a case for abetment to suicide.

The Court turned down the plea for police custody. Arnab Goswami has moved for bail which the Alibag court will consider tomorrow.

The remand order was passed after a marathon hearing session of nearly six hours which went late into the night.

Goswami, who was arrested by Raigad police today morning from his Mumbai residence, was brought before the Magistrate on Wednesday evening around 5.30 PM.

The Republic TV reported that the Bombay High Court is likely to hear tomorrow a petition filed by Goswami seeking to quash the FIR.

The Maharashtra police registered another FIR today evening against Goswami for allegedly assaulting a lady constable to resist his arrest today morning.

He was arrested in a case registered by Raigad police in 2018 for allegedly abetting the suicide of a 52-year old interior designer named Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik.

It is alleged that Anvay Naik left a suicide note written in English stating that he and his mother decided to take the extreme step on account of payments due to them not being cleared by the owners of three companies – television journalist Arnab Goswami of Republic TV, Feroz Shaikh of IcastX/Skimedia and Niteish Sarda of Smartworks.

Naik said in his suicide note that his company had executed interior works for Republic TV and an amount of Rs 83 lakh was due from Goswami and ARG Outlier Meida Pvt Ltd (parent company of Republic TV).

The Raigad police had closed the case in April 2019 saying that they did not find evidence against the accused named in the suicide note, including Goswami.

However, in May this year, Anvay's daughter approached the Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh seeking the case be reopened.

Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had tweeted in May, "Adnya Naik had complained to me that Alibaug Police had not investigated non-payment of dues from Arnab Goswami's Republic which drove her entrepreneur father and grandma to suicide in May 2018. I've ordered a CID re-investigation of the case."

Meanwhile, Union Ministers Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP leader Pragya Singh Thakur, Tejaswi Surya etc., condemned the arrest of Goswami as an attack on press freedom.