Supreme Court Postpones Hearing of NewsClick Founders' Arrest Pleas Till After Diwali

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 offenses under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) was postponed by the Supreme Court on Monday until after the Diwali holiday.

Since the top court would be away from November 13–18 for Diwali, Purkayastha and Chakraborty may now expect any respite until after November 20. Sunday, November 19, is here.

When the petition came up for a short hearing, a panel of Justices B.R. Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra ordered a "list immediately after ensuing Diwali holidays."

In support of Purkayastha, senior attorney Kapil Sibal informed the court that the prosecution in Purkayastha and Chakraborty had disregarded the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Pankaj Bansal case, which mandated that reasons of arrest be given to the accused. He claimed that the accused had not received the arrest document or the reasons for the arrest.

Following the bench's announcement that the case will be heard after the Diwali break, Sibal asked the Supreme Court to consider Purkayastha, 71, at least when it came to his motion for medically necessary temporary respite.

On the other hand, the SLP and the interim application will be reviewed on the same day, according to Chief Justice Gavai.

For lack of time, the subject was again postponed on October 18 and 19.

The two have filed SLPs contesting the concurrent orders issued on October 13 by a Delhi High Court single judge bench as well as a previous ruling from a trial court that refused to revoke their detention and arrests.

Because the alleged offenses "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," Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the Delhi High Court declined to intervene in Purkayastha and Chakraborty's arrest on October 13.

Following extensive searches by the Delhi police's special cell on the news portal's headquarters and the homes of its upper echelons on suspicion of engaging in anti-national activities, Purkayastha and Chakraborty were taken into custody on October 3. NewsClick was charged by the Delhi police of accepting funding illegally from groups such as the People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism in order to tamper with the 2019 elections and to portray Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir as non-Indian territories.

The two had argued before the high court that their arrests and subsequent remand were unlawful because, as the Supreme Court had ruled on October 3 in a case involving PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) offenses, the Delhi police's special cell had not provided them with the required grounds for arrest. The high court had rejected this argument.