Arnab Goswami’s bail plea in 2018 suicide case in SC today

Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami’s petition challenging Bombay high court order which refused to grant him interim bail in the 2018 abetment to suicide case will be heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

A vacation bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee is likely to hear the case at 10:30 am. The high court had on Monday refused to grant interim bail to Goswami and two others and asked them to move to the local court.

Apart from the Maharashtra government, Goswami has made the Centre, the Alibaug police station SHO, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh and Akshyata Anvay Naik as parties to his appeal.

The 47-year-old journalist has also filed a bail plea in the sessions court after the Bombay high court order.

Shortly after the matter was listed for Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president objected to the “extraordinary” listing of the Goswani’s petition and questioned the top court’s secretary general to disclose whether any order or direction to list the matter was issued by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in this regard.

Goswami, along with two other accused Feroz Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda, was arrested on November 4 in connection with the 2018 suicide abetment case of designer Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud. The designer, in a suicide note, had alleged non-payment of dues by firms of the accused.

The three accused were later produced before a magistrate who refused to send them in police custody and remanded them in judicial custody till November 18.

The Republic TV editor was initially kept at a local school which is designated as a Covid-19 quarantine centre for the Alibaug prison. He, however, was on Sunday shifted to the Taloja jail in Raigad district after allegedly being found using a mobile phone while in judicial custody.

Pradeep Bhandari, a consulting editor with Republic news channel, on Sunday wrote to CJI SA Bobde urging him to take cognizance of shifting of Goswami to Taloja Jail to keep him allegedly with “hardened” and “underworld” criminals and provide “some sort of safety” to him. He said Goswami has said that “his life is in danger”.