Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty were arrested following allegations of taking money to spread Chinese propaganda.
Protests were held across the country against the arrest. (Instagram)
The Delhi High Court, on Friday, 13 October, refused to interfere with the arrest and subsequent police remand of NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the online news portal’s Human Resources department head Amit Chakravarty in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case registered against them, following allegations of taking money to spread Chinese propaganda.
Dismissing their plea challenging the police action, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said, “The court does not find merit in both petitions.”
Purkayastha and Chakravarty were arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on 3 October.
They subsequently moved the high court challenging the arrest, as well as the 7-day police custody, and sought immediate release as an interim relief. On 10 October, the trial court sent them to judicial custody for 10 days.
About 46 people, including nine women journalists, were questioned on 3 October, the day the Special Cell raided several locations connected to the news website in Delhi and NCR. About 25 journalists and contributors were questioned for a second time on 10 October.
“Since the arrest took place, everyone was called for the second round of questioning. About 25 of them have appeared so far,” said a police officer, on 10 October.
Purkayastha had told the Delhi High Court that the allegations against him were “false” and “bogus”, and “not a penny has come from China”.
Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the investigation agency, said that the case involved “serious offences” and the probe was still ongoing.
“About ₹75 crore odd…investigation is on and I can show it from the case diary…came from a person staying in China and the purpose is to ensure that the stability and especially the integrity of this country is compromised,” Mehta said.
“One of the most serious allegations found in the e-mail exchanges between accused persons with somebody sitting in China is that we will prepare a map where we will show J&K and what we call Arunachal Pradesh…they use the expression which Chinese use, namely ‘northern border of India’, and not show that (Arunachal) to be a part of India,” Mehta told the court.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Purkayastha, refuted the claim. “All facts are false. Not a penny has come from China…The whole thing is bogus,” Sibal said.
Sibal and senior advocate Dayan Krishnan contended that their arrest and remand in the present case cannot be sustained on several legal counts, including that they were not told about the grounds of arrest at the time of arrest — or even to date.
The remand order was passed by the trial court in a mechanical manner, in the absence of their lawyers, they said.
An official said that the gadgets taken from the journalists were sent to the FSL (Forensic Science Lab) for examination and extraction of any content related to the matter.
According to the Delhi Police’s remand copy, which was submitted before the court on 4 October when it produced Purkayastha and Chakravarty, the analysis of the e-mails shows that Neville Roy Singham, Prabir Purkayastha, and Amit Chakravarty were in direct touch with each other and were found to be discussing how to create a map of India without Kashmir and to show Arunachal Pradesh as a disputed area.
“To achieve the above objective, the accused persons, in the guise of foreign funds, received money of more than ₹115 crore in the companies named as PPK NewsClick, GSPAN India, JJ Enterprises, Virtunet Systems,” stated the remand copy.
On 17 August, the Delhi Police had, in the matter, registered a case under Sections 13, 16, 17,18 and 22 of the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and Sections 153A (promoting enmity between two groups) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
The police searched more than 30 locations and questioned several dozen journalists on 3 October in connection with the case. They were allowed to go after questioning, which, in some cases, extended to over six hours.
Among those questioned were journalists Urmilesh, Aunindyo Chakravarty, Abhisar Sharma, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, as well as historian Sohail Hashmi, satirist Sanjay Rajoura, and D Raghunandan of the Centre for Technology & Development.
Meanwhile, Pranjoy Guha Thakurtha, one among the questioned, told South First, “They couldn’t get him (Prabir) under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), the FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) or the Income Tax Act, so they finally got him in police custody under UAPA.”
“I haven’t seen the FIR. It is said that the FIR was launched on 17 August. So almost a month-and-a-half later, all these things happened. It is sending a chilling message to all journalists that this is what the government is capable of doing,” he said.
“They don’t want independent critical journalism to continue in this country. That’s the only conclusion I can draw,” Guha Thakurta added.
Prominent journalists’ bodies, including the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC), Press Club of India, and Digipub News India Foundation, have sought the intervention of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud in the matter.
(With PTI inputs)
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