Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct 16: Prabir Purkayastha, the founder of NewsClick, and Amit Chakravarty, the company’s HR head, filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Monday, challenging the decision of the Delhi High Court, which had declined to intervene in their arrest and subsequent police custody in a case registered under the anti-terrorism law UAPA.
Senior attorney Kapil Sibal spoke on behalf of Purkayastha and Chakravarty. A bench consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra noted his arguments that the matter required an urgent hearing and asked for him to circulate the case documents for review.
“This is the NewsClick matter. The journalists are in police custody. Here one of the accused is a 75-year-old man,” Sibal said.
The CJI stated that he will take a call regarding the listing.
On October 13, a bench in the Delhi High Court rejected the plea challenging the arrest and subsequent police custody of Purkayastha and Chakravarty in the case. Both individuals had been apprehended by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on October 3.
After conducting raids at around 88 locations linked to NewsClick and its journalists, the Delhi Police arrested Purkayastha and Chakravarty. They are accused of accepting foreign funding from China to disrupt India’s sovereignty and foster discontent within the nation.
It is further alleged that Purkayastha was involved in a conspiracy with the People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) to disrupt the electoral proceedings during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
