The Supreme Court on Wednesday invalidated the arrest and subsequent remand of NewsClick founder and Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha by Delhi police under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta ordered Purkayastha’s release, subject to surety and a bail bond.
The court ruled that the failure to provide Purkayastha with a copy of the remand application and grounds of arrest violated principles of natural justice. “A copy of the remand application was not provided to the appellant. This vitiates the arrest of the appellant… Though we would have released him without surety, since the chargesheet has been filed, we release him with surety and a bail bond,” the bench stated.
Purkayastha has been in custody since October 2, 2023, lodged in Tihar jail under anti-terror law. He challenged his arrest over allegations of receiving Chinese funding to promote anti-national propaganda. His arrest was upheld by the Delhi High Court on October 13, 2023, but the Supreme Court has now overruled this decision.
Earlier, NewsClick’s HR head, Amit Chakravarty, withdrew his petition against his arrest and was allowed by a Delhi court to turn approver in the case against the news portal. Purkayastha and Chakraborty were arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on October 3 following searches at 30 locations linked to NewsClick and its journalists.
The FIR alleges significant Chinese funding to NewsClick aimed at disrupting India’s sovereignty and causing disaffection. It also accuses Purkayastha of conspiring with the People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) to sabotage the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Speaking on the Supreme Court’s order, Advocate Arshdeep Khurana said, “The Supreme Court has held the arrest and the remand proceedings to be illegal and has directed the release of Purkayastha. This is a major and big relief because we have been maintaining from the beginning that the entire proceedings against him were illegal and the manner of arrest was illegal which has now been upheld by the Supreme Court.”
