NEW DELHI, Oct 13: The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to interfere with the arrest and subsequent police remand of NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the news portal’s human resources department head Amit Chakravarty in a case lodged against them under anti-terror law UAPA.
The high court rejected their contention that they ought to have been supplied with the grounds of arrest when they were apprehended by police and said the UAPA does not mandate furnishing the written grounds and only speaks of the accused being “informed” about the reasons for arrest. The court said it would be “advisable” that the police henceforth provide the grounds of arrest in writing to an accused after redacting “sensitive material”.
Dismissing the petitions, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said there was no “procedural infirmity” or violation of legal or constitutional provisions in relation to the arrest and the remand order is sustainable in law.
“The petition, being devoid of any merit, along with pending applications, is dismissed,” said the court in its order passed on the petition by the portal’s founder.
“After examining the entire issue in the right perspective, it appears as of now that the grounds of arrest were indeed conveyed to the petitioner, as soon as may be, after the arrest and as such, there does not appear to be any procedural infirmity or violation of the provisions of the Section 43B of the UAPA or the Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India and as such, the arrest are in accordance with law,” the court stated.
The court noted that offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) directly impact the stability, integrity and sovereignty of the country and are of utmost importance since they affect national security.
It said the arrestee only needed to be informed about the grounds of arrest within 24 hours of being apprehended.
The petitioners, besides assailing their arrest over non-supply of the reasons for it, had also contended that the subsequent remand order sending them to 7-day police custody was passed in the absence of their lawyers.
It was also alleged that there was an “obvious discrepancy” in the trial court’s remand order because while the order recorded 6 am as the time of pronouncement, in terms of the high court rules, Purkayastha’s lawyer was sent the remand application through WhatsApp only at 7 am.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Dayan Krishnan appeared for Purkayastha. A case has been lodged against the two under anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for allegedly receiving money to spread pro-China propaganda. (PTI)
