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\nFollowing the SC order finding the arrest and remand of NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha illegal, Patiala House Court ordered his release on bail bonds worth Rs 1 lakh, and on three conditions \u2014 he shall not contact witnesses and approvers in the case, he shall not talk about the merits of the case and he shall not travel abroad without the court\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n
Purkayastha was arrested by Delhi Police on Oct 3 along with NewsClick\u2019s HR head Amit Chakraborty for allegedly receiving illegal funding from China, routed through US with the intention of undermining India\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity.<\/p>\n
Writing the 41-page SC judgment, Justice Sandeep Mehta said Purkayastha\u2019s arrest, followed by the remand order of Oct 4 last year and Delhi HC\u2019s Oct 15 order validating the remand, were contrary to law and hence quashed. Non-intimation of grounds of arrest to Purkayastha and his counsel vitiated the arrest and remand order, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no doubt in the mind of the court that any person arrested for allegation of commission of offences under provisions of UAPA or for that matter any other offence(s) has a fundamental and statutory right to be informed about the grounds of arrest in writing and a copy of such written grounds of arrest has to be furnished to the arrested person as a matter of course and without exception at the earliest,\u201d the bench, which also comprised Justice B R Gavai, said.<\/p>\n
It turned down the argument of ASG S V Raju, and said the SC order in Pankaj Bansal case regarding the rights of the accused under PMLA \u2014 to be informed of the grounds of arrest in writing \u2014 applied also to those charged with offences under UAPA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of informing the arrested person (of) the grounds of arrest is salutary and sacrosanct inasmuch as this information would be the only effective means for the arrested person to consult his advocate, oppose the police custody remand and seek bail,\u201d SC said.<\/p>\n
Elaborating on the mandatory duty of police to give written information on grounds of arrest, Supreme Court said it must inform the arrested person of \u201call basic facts on which he was being arrested\u201d so as to provide him an opportunity to defend himself against custodial remand and to seek bail. \u201cThus, the \u2018grounds of arrest\u2019 would invariably be personal to the accused and cannot be equated with the \u2018reasons of arrest\u2019 which are general in nature,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight to life and personal liberty is the most sacrosanct fundamental right guaranteed under Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution. Any attempt to encroach upon this fundamental right has been frowned upon by this court in a catena of decisions\u2026 Thus, any attempt to violate such a fundamental right, guaranteed by Articles, 20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution, would have to be dealt with strictly,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The apex court said the FIR copy was not provided to Purkayastha despite him making an application. The copy of the FIR was provided to him on Oct 5 last year, two days after he was arrested and a day after he was remanded in police custody, the court said.<\/p>\n
NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha, arrested on Oct 3 last year under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, was released on bail Wednesday after Supreme Court found that Delhi Police blatantly violated his fundamental right to be informed in writing about the grounds of arrest and the trial judge illegally remanded him in custody, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.<\/p>\n
Accepting every argument of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, the bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said, \u201cThough we would have been persuaded to direct Purkayastha\u2019s release without requiring him to furnish bonds or security but since the chargesheet has been filed, we feel it appropriate to direct his release…on furnishing bail and bonds to the satisfaction of the trial court.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following the SC order finding the arrest and remand of NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha illegal, Patiala House Court ordered his release on bail bonds worth Rs 1 lakh, and on three conditions \u2014 he shall not contact witnesses and approvers in the case, he shall not talk about the merits of the case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kcpalanisamy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}