JOIN USRepublic TV's Arnab Goswami moves SC for bail in abetment to suicide case
Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami has approached the Supreme Court seeking interim bail in the 2018 case of alleged abetment to suicide of an interior designer.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee would take up his petition against the Bombay HC's order of November 9 refusing to grant interim bail to Goswami and two others. This would be a special sitting on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court is on a week-long Diwali break.
The HC asked them to move to the local court for the relief.
The appeal against the high court order has been filed in the top court through lawyer Nirnimesh Dubey.
Besides the Maharashtra government, Goswami who is in Taloja jail, has made the Centre, the SHO of Alibaug police station, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh and Akshyata Anvay Naik as parties to his appeal.
The state government, through advocate Sachin Patil, has also filed a caveat in the top court to ensure that no order is passed on Goswami's plea without it being heard in the case.
Goswami and the two others were arrested by Alibaug police in Maharashtra's Raigad district on November 4 in connection with the suicide of architect-interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother in 2018 over alleged non-payment of dues by companies of the accused.
The high court, while rejecting the interim bail pleas of Goswami and the two other accused Feroze Shaikh and Nitish Sarda, had said, "no case has been made out for us (court) to exercise our extraordinary jurisdiction".
"The petitioners have the efficacious remedy of seeking bail before the sessions court concerned. We have already noted earlier that if such bail plea is filed, then the sessions court shall decide the same in four days," it said on Monday.
Apart from seeking the interim bail, the journalist and other accused had also sought a direction from the high court for staying the investigation into the case and quash the FIR against them.
The high court will hear their pleas seeking to quash the FIR on December 10.
Goswami was arrested on November 4 from his Lower Parel residence in Mumbai.