Arnab Goswami bail plea hearing update: ‘Power to re-investigate wrongly used’, Supreme Court told

Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to order a CBI inquiry in a 2018 abetment to suicide case in which he has been arrested.

Appearing for Goswami, senior lawyer Harish Salve said the power to re-investigate was wrongly used.

As the hearing began, the vacation bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee said they will only look at the petition seeking quashing of the FIR against the journalist.

“Before you begin, there is one aspect we look at in these matters where there is a challenge to the FIRs. The only prayer which survives is the quashing of FIR,” the bench said.

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But Salve argued that overlay of malice and fact, abuse and conduct of state power is not something that happens on daily basis. “We’re past FIR stage. FIR was lodged in May 2018 and after this matter was probed. The power to re-investigate was wrongly used,” he told the court.

The hearing is still continuing.

Goswami has challenged the Bombay high court order which refused to grant him interim bail in the 2018 case. Goswami, who is currently lodged in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja jail, called his arrest and “illegal” detention a violation of his right to life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950.

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.