SC Orders Release Of NewsClick Founder Prabir Purkayastha In UAPA Case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of NewsClick founder and Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha in the anti-terror case.

A bench comprising Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said that the absence of the remand copy renders his arrest invalid.

The bench said, "There is no hesitation in the mind of the Court to reach to a conclusion that a copy of the remand application, in the purported exercise of the communication of the grounds of arrest in writing, was not provided to the accused-appellant or his counsel before the passing of the remand order dated 4th October, 2023, which vitiates the arrest and the subsequent remand of the appellant.

As a result, the appellant is entitled to a direction for release from custody by applying the ration of the judgment rendered by this court in Pankaj Bansal,"

The Special Cell of Delhi Police had arrested Prabir Purkayastha and NewsClick HR Head Amit Chakravarty on October 3 last year in a case based on allegations that the news portal received money to spread pro-China propaganda.

However, the judge had pardoned Chakravarty, arrested in the case, on his application that claimed he had material information which he was willing to disclose to Delhi police, which is investigating the matter.

The FIR alleges that a substantial sum of funds flowing into the news portal originated from China with the purported intent to "undermine the sovereignty of India" and foster disaffection against the nation. It also accuses Purkayastha of conspiring with a group called the People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) to disrupt the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Raids were conducted at 88 locations in Delhi and seven in other states on October 3 against the suspects named in the FIR and those that surfaced in the analysis of data.

Around 300 electronic gadgets were also seized from the offices of NewsClick and the residences of the journalists who were examined.