Supreme Court adjourns hearing of pleas of NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and HR chief Amit Chakraborty against arrest

 Bench says matter will be heard after Diwali vacation

R. Balaji, TT, New Delhi, 07.11.23 : The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned till after the Diwali vacation the hearing of the two separate special leave petitions (SLPs) filed by NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and HR chief Amit Chakraborty challenging their arrests and police remand for alleged offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

Purkayastha and Chakraborty can now hope for any relief only after November 20 as the top court will be on a Diwali recess from November 13-18. November 19 is a Sunday.

“List immediately after ensuing Diwali holidays,” a bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra said when the matter came up for a brief hearing.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Purkayastha, told the court that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Pankaj Bansal case that grounds of arrest must be furnished to an accused has been violated by the authorities in the case of Purkayastha and Chakraborty. He said the grounds of arrest and the memo of arrest were not served to the accused.

When the bench said the matter would be heard after the Diwali vacation, Sibal requested the apex court to at least hear 71-year-old Purkayastha’s application for interim relief on medical grounds.

However, Justice Gavai, who was heading the bench, said both the SLP and the interim application would be considered on the same day.

The matter was adjourned twice on October 18 and 19 owing to paucity of time.

The duo has filed the SLPs challenging the concurrent orders passed by a single judge bench of the Delhi High Court on October 13 and an earlier order of a trial court refusing to quash their arrests and remand.

On October 13, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the Delhi High Court refused to interfere with the arrest of Purkayastha and Chakraborty on the ground that “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”.

Purkayastha and Chakraborty were arrested on October 3 after the Delhi police’s special cell conducted massive raids on the news portal’s office and residential premises of its top echelons for alleged anti-national activities. The Delhi police had accused NewsClick of receiving funds illegally from organisations like the People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism to sabotage the 2019 elections and getting illegal funds to project Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir as not being part of India.

The high court had rejected the duo’s plea that their arrests and subsequent remand were illegal as the Delhi police’s special cell had not furnished them with the necessary grounds of arrest as was ruled by the Supreme Court on October 3 in connection with a case to offences under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act).