NewsClick founder, HR head move Supreme Court against police remand in UAPA case

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list 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..Purkayastha and Chakraborty have challenged the Delhi High Court’s order upholding the trial court order remanding them to police custody. They have since been remanded to judicial custody.Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said that the Court would look at the papers and list the matter, after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned it today.“He is a 70 plus man in custody,” said Sibal, referring to Purkayastha’s arrest..Last week, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the Delhi High Court rejected the petitions filed by Purkayastha and Chakraborty challenging the remand order and rejected their argument about non-furnishing of grounds of arrest.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).Justice Gedela, however, held that the Supreme Court’s recent judgment was not squarely applicable to arrests made under the UAPA..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.NewsClick has denied the allegations.