NewsClick Arrests: Supreme Court seeks Delhi Police response to plea by Prabir Purkayastha, Amit Chakraborty against remand

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the response of the Delhi Police to the petitions filed by NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the news website's human resources head Amit Chakraborty against their police remand in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case registered against them [Prabir Purkayastha vs State of NCT of Delhi]..A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra issued notice and posted the case for further consideration on October 30. "Issue notice. Returnable on October 30, 2023," the Court ordered."The man is inside. He is 72 years old," said Sibal seeking an earlier date."It cannot be taken up tomorrow... it (tomorrow) is the only working day (before Dussehra vacation). List on Oct 30, the next Monday," the Court said..Purkayastha and Chakraborty moved the top court challenging the Delhi High Court’s order upholding the trial court decision to remand them to police custody.Purkayastha and Chakraborty were arrested following a series of raids conducted in the wake of allegations made in a New York Times article that NewsClick was being paid to boost Chinese propaganda.The arrest was made on October 3 after several hours of questioning. They were remanded to seven days of police custody on October 4. As per the FIR, the accused illegally received crores of rupees in foreign funds and deployed the same with an intention to disrupt the sovereignty, unity and security of India.The FIR said that secret inputs suggested that substantial foreign funds were illegally funneled into India by both Indian and foreign entities. These funds, amounting to crores of rupees, were received by Newsclick through illegal means over a span of five years.The funds were fraudulently infused by Neville Roy Singham, allegedly an active member of the Communist Party of China's propaganda department, through a complex network of entities, it was alleged.They then moved the High Court challenging their arrest, remand and the FIR lodged against them under UAPA.The petitioners had argued that their arrest and remand were illegal since they were not supplied with the grounds of arrest, in violation of the recent Supreme Court judgment in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India & Ors (M3M case).However, the High Court rejected their argument about non-furnishing of grounds of arrest.It held that the Supreme Court’s recent judgment was not squarely applicable to arrests made under the UAPA.This led to the instant appeals before the apex court.