IS SUPREME COURT RIGHT OR WRONG?

 So the story goes like this on 5th may 2018, Mumbai based interior designer Anvay Naik commits suicide along with his mother Kumud Naik at their bunglow in alibaug. Police discovers a suicide note in their house which says that some of his customers haven’t paid  money due to which he was  facing financial issues and that’s the reason for his suicide. According to suicide note of Anvay Naik, Arnab Goswami owes 83 him lakh rupees , Firoz Sheikh owes 4 crore and Nitish Sharda owes 55 lakh rupees.  An FIR  was filled against them but after one year of investigation Mumbai police closed the case by saying that they haven’t found any evidence in this case against the three accused.

But in May 2020 after the request of Anway Naik's wife  and daughter, case was reopened. And on 4th November 2020 Arnab Goswami and two other accused were arrested from their residence by Mumbai  police. Goswami was arrested under sections 306(abetment of suicide) and 34(acts done by person in furtherance of common intention) of the indian panel code. He was later charged with more sections for resisting arrest and tearing up his arrest papers. The division bench of High Court of justice SS Shinde and MS Karni, while rejecting the plea for the urgent interim bail application observed that the petitioners have other remedies under section 439 of the criminal procedure code(CrPC) to approach the sessions court and hence court has rejected his application .After  being rejected by HC the three accused moved towards Supreme Court for interim bail. A vacation bench of justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee gave the order to release the accuse on interim bail challenging the 9th November decision of High court. The supreme court directed the accused not to make any attempt to tamper with evidence or influence witnesses. But the  thing here to note is the reason given by  justice bench while granting the bail to accuse are following

1. If you don’t like a channel then don’t  watch it.

2. If state government targets individuals they must realise that there is an apex court to protect the liberty of citizens.

3. If we don’t intervene in this case today then we will walk on the path of destruction.

4. If we as a constitutional court don’t lay down the law and protect liberty then who will?

Now the question raised here is that the extraordinary alacrity SC has showed in  this matter , shouldn’t SC pay attention to the rest of the cases that involve personal liberty and free expression. SC has not held itself to its own high standard in several other cases of citizen VS state, ranging from the arrest of Kerala’s journalist Siddique Kappan on his way to Hathras  in the wake  of the gangrape and death of a young woman  and charged  under UAPA to Umar Khalid who has been arrested by Delhi police on 13th September by claiming that he has planned riots in Delhi without any evidence. SC didn’t intervene in the case when manipur TV journalist Wangkhem was arrested under charges of sedition on 8th October only because he had responded to a post on social media by the wife of BJP leader or when on 3rd September 2019, when a journalist was arrested after he exposed a mid day meal scam in which school children were fed rotis with salt. His crime was to make a report on that. He was imprisoned under sedition charges.

SC didn’t  interfere in these cases and there are many more of this kind where liberty and freedom of speech of citizens are at stake.

In my point of view as Arnab Goswami is a well known millionaire journalist so the apex court used this path and intervened but as far as

other journalist are concerned apex court didn’t give them the required attention. Different approach was used for two same kind

of people framed under different accusations.

                                                    

                                                

Labhesh gupta