On 11 November, the Supreme court approved the bail petition of Arnab Goswami who was arrested in the 2018 suicide case.
The apex court strongly stood against the Bombay High court’s decision of dismissing the bail plea. They also said that the High court has not done enough in the incident where personal liberty is denied, without the court intervention in such matters it would lead to the path of destruction, said Justice D Y Chandrachud.
The bench of the High court had rejected the bail petition on 9th November. They had justified that ‘no case was made out based on facts of the case as per section 439 of Criminal Procedure Code under extraordinary jurisdiction” and said its observations are in ‘prima facie nature.’
However, the high court had permitted them to appeal to the sessions court under section 439 of CrPc and gave them a window of four days to excuse the case if it is filed.
The supreme court felt that the bench had not focused on the arrest case of Arnab Goswami but gave more attention to the arguments on the habeas corpus plea presented by Goswami’s lawyers. The supreme court also questioned why was Arnab Goswami arrested for not paying the dues that were supposed to be paid by his company which led to Anvay Naik committing suicide.
The case was presented in the supreme court by Lawyer Harish Salve, who said that at the time of the arrest, power of re-investigation was unfairly used. The supreme court also demanded to know why was the personal liberty of a person was denied. Lawyer Salve also said that the arrest of Arnab Goswami way the way to teach him a lesson for his taunts on his news channel.
The case is past the FIR stage. It was filed on May 2018 and the matter was closed after investigation. This shows abuse and conduct of state power.
The apex court asked the senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state about the investigation of the case and if it involved the crime of suicide. Otherwise, looking at the drastic consequences, an individual’s personal liberty is challenged, said Justice Chandrachud.
He also stated that the Maharashtra government should ignore all this owing to the volatile nature of democracy. “The allegation is about withholding money which can be ascertained from documents. What’s the need for custodial interrogation? he questioned.
Lawyer Salve argued that the Chief-in-Editor of Republic Tv was arrested for a three-year-old FIR. In addition, he was taken into custody in the Diwali week then he was transferred to the Taloja jail. It leaves no doubt what the state government’s intention is.
Anvay Naik’s wife also testified that they were not informed when the case was closed and was not even given the opportunity to argue in the court. They also said that they had received threats after the case was closed.
The advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan defending one of the accused, claimed that the others taken in the custody were collateral damage in the Maharashtra government’s attempt of taking the so-called ‘revenge’ by arresting Arnab Goswami.
