Updated: November 5, 2020 10:17:17 pm
Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami after the Alibaug court hearing at midnight Wednesday (Express photo by Narendra Vaskar)
A magistrate, while referring Republic TV host Arnab Goswami and two others to two-week judicial custody on Wednesday in a 2018 incitement to the suicide case, noted that the arrests appeared to be “prima facie illegal.”
The detailed order in Marathi from Chief Judge Sunaina Pingle, which was made available to lawyers on Thursday, says that after reading the case diary and other relevant documents, the prosecution was unable to establish a prima facie link between the deceased and the accused.
The judge, while rejecting a two-week police remand request for Goswami and the other two, had also asked the police for permission from the court to reopen the case, as it was closed in 2019.
A Raigad police team picked up Goswami (47) from his residence in Lower Parel in Mumbai on Wednesday morning. He and the other two defendants, Feroze Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda, were later brought before the magistrate in the Alibaug town of Raigad, some 90 km from Mumbai.
Goswami, after being brought to court on Wednesday afternoon, reported a physical assault that led the judge to send him for a medical examination during which the claims were not true.
The hearing, which continued until 11.30pm last night, also saw a handwritten bail request from Goswami’s lawyer which was later withdrawn on Thursday when the defendant applied for provisional bail from the Bombay High Court.
According to established rules, a magistrate can hear bail statements in cases where the punishment is less than seven years. The case against Goswami and others has been brought under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including section 306 (punishment for instigation of suicide which is 10 years).
Goswami and two other people were arrested in the suicide case of interior designer Anvay Naik and her mother for alleged non-payment of the defendants’ company fees.
“Taking into consideration the reasons behind the arrest of the defendants and the arguments of the defendants, the detention appears to be prima facie illegal,” the court said.
The magistrate noted that the chain of circumstances, the motive for the death of Anvay Naik and his mother Kumodini Naik and their connection to the accused have not been established by the prosecution.
“No strong evidence has been presented to justify this court sending the detained defendants into police custody,” the court said.
The magistrate also pointed out that the case had been closed in 2019 and since then neither the prosecution nor the complainant challenged the closing report in the session court or in the Superior Court.
The court further said that the Alibaug police did not seek the magistrate’s permission before reopening the case. “The investigating officer on October 15, 2020 only submitted a report to the magistrate informing that certain new material has come to the fore in the case. There is no record that shows that the magistrate allowed the case to be reopened, ”the court said.
The magistrate in the warrant noted that if the police case that Anvay Naik took the drastic measure of committing suicide due to non-payment of fees from Goswami and the other two defendants is accepted, then the question arises as to why his (Anvay Naik’s mother, Kumodini Naik, committed suicide.
“Did she (Kumodini) die by suicide? There is no clear answer to this from the prosecution. The police have not been able to establish a link between the deaths of Kumodini Naik and Anvay Naik and the three arrested defendants, ”the court said.
While it refused to place the three defendants in pre-trial detention in police custody, the court also noted that the police have been unable to specifically point to the so-called loopholes in the investigation conducted by the previous police team in 2018 into the case.
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