MUMBAI: Arnab Goswami, editor-in-chief of Republic TV, had to spend his second night in custody as the Bombay high court on Thursday granted him no relief but posted his urgent plea for interim release to 3pm on Friday.
Goswami, arrested on Wednesday by Alibaug police, was remanded that night by a magistrate in 14 days’ judicial custody in a May 2018 case against him for abetment to suicide of interior designer Anvay Naik who had worked on his office-studio in Mumbai.
On Thursday, his lawyers invoked the wide plenary power of the HC to do justice against an “illegal arrest” in a case which was closed in April 2019. The HC bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik made it clear it would first be hearing “all parties” and asked him to make the informant, Naik’s widow Akshata, a party to his petition.
Senior counsel Harish Salve and Aabad Ponda for Goswami said his liberty was at stake and sought his release on urgent “interim bail”. “Police cannot suo motu resurrect a dead case” when a magistrate had last April accepted a closure report, submitted Ponda.
Goswami had on Wednesday filed a ‘habeas corpus’ petition and sought to have the 2018 Alibaug FIR quashed and the probe stayed.
Ponda appealed to the judges’ “judicial conscience” to give “interim bail”. “Even a second of such illegal custody cannot be countenanced,” said Ponda, pleading urgency as Friday was the last working day before Diwali vacation.
Ponda also submitted that since “no date was given for bail application before the Alibaug magistrate”, he withdrew Goswami’s bail plea there. He also said the Alibaug court expressed doubt whether it could hear the bail plea since the offence is “sessions triable”. The magistrate’s court is subordinate to sessions court.
There needs to be an order, either from the same or a superior court, to reopen the case, Ponda said citing judgments. “Here is a case where order of accepting A-summary (closure report where police say crime is true but undetected) is passed, and to remove it they must move some court.”
Ponda submitted that in a letter dated October 15, 2020 by the police, there was an intimation to the court but “it does not tell the court” that the magistrate has accepted the closure report on April 16, 2019. He said, “Rightly or wrongly or otherwise, the case was closed without a notice to the informant.” Ponda said, “Can this error be rectified by the police without going to some court of law? Can police review a final order passed under provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure?” The order continues to remain and the legal provision is that police ought to have invoked a private complaint under Section 156(3) of CrPC and got an order of the magistrate for a probe. “Merely saying we are informing you under provisions of 173(8) for further probe” will not suffice, he submitted.
The October document, said Ponda, states “Seen and filed” but that is “not an order of the magistrate”. The HC asked if Goswami had made the original informant a party and since he had not, asked him to. Senior counsel Amit Desai, appearing for the state in Goswami’s challenge to his arrest, will make his submissions on Friday when the plea for interim relief will be heard.
The HC said, “We do not want to make the same mistake that you said the magistrate made of no notice to informant. We cannot ignore the rights of the victim... Let us see what happens tomorrow.” Nitesh Sarda, the other accused arrested on Wednesday in the abetment to suicide case, also petitioned the HC, and his counsel Vijay Aggarwal with Karan Kadam said Naik has been made a party in his petition which also challenged the arrest.