Updated: November 16, 2020 8:31:43 pm
Siddique Kappan (wearing cap), secretary of the Kerala Union of Worker Journalists, and three other people arrested with him were brought before a court in Mathura. (PTI)
On Monday, the Supreme Court requested a response from the Uttar Pradesh government to a statement challenging the arrest of journalist Siddique Kappan, who was being detained on his way to Hathras.
In October, Kappan, who works with the Malayalam news website Azhimukham, was indicted under the UAPA along with three other people. They were heading to Hathras, where a young Dalit had been killed after allegedly gang-raped by four upper caste men.
A bench of the Chief Justice SA Bobde and justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked the lawyer for the Kerala Union of Worker Journalists (KUWJ) why he had not approached the Allahabad High Court and came to him immediately.
“We will issue a notice. We will keep it on Friday, ”said the bank when the main lawyer Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the association, requested the journalist’s bail, saying that his client was not listed in the FIR.
“The FIR does not name it. No crimes are alleged. He has been in jail since October 5, ”Sibal said.
In raising questions about not going to higher court, the court said: “We do not rely on the merits of the case. Why haven’t you gone to Superior Court?
READ: The family of journalist Siddique Kappan asks: Aren’t we citizens?
Previously, the high court had said that it would hear the guilty plea after four weeks, and in the meantime, the corps of journalists could go to the Allahabad high court to get relief.
On November 11, during the hearing in which the Supreme Court granted a provisional bond to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, chief lawyer Kapil Sibal, representing Maharashtra, mentioned Kappan’s arrest. Sibal said the Supreme Court had been contacted under Article 32, only to be referred to the lower court.
UP police have alleged that Kappan, 41, and three members of the Campus Front of India (CFI), who were traveling with him, were part of a “conspiracy” to inflame religious enmity over the rape of Hathras, and the charged with various charges. , even under strict UAPA and sedition.
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