Arrests of Arnab Goswami and two others seem illegal, observes court; cops file revision plea
The Alibag police on Thursday filed a revision application in the Alibag sessions court against the magistrate order that sent Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami to judicial custody till November 18, said a senior officer. The revision application was filed after the chief judicial magistrate court late on Wednesday observed that the arrests of Goswami, 47, and two others, for allegedly abetting the suicide of a 53-year-old interior designer, Anvay Naik, and his mother in 2018, appeared illegal, while rejecting the plea of the prosecution for custodial interrogation. The revision application will be heard on November 7.
The Alibag police on Wednesday morning had arrested Goswami, Feroz Shaikh, owner of IcastX/Skimedia, and Nitesh Sarda, owner of Smartwork. The prosecution sought their maximum police custody for further investigation. The plea was turned down by chief judicial magistrate (Alibag), Sunayana S Pingale, who noted that the prosecution failed to prima facie establish a link between the deceased and the accused.
In her order, the magistrate said, “In view of the objections raised by the defence lawyers and grounds raised by the prosecution to seek police custody, the arrest itself appears illegal. After careful screening of the document, it appears that the connection between the incident and the deaths of two people, the connection between the deceased and the accused should have been determined before seeking police custody. Only if this chain of circumstances is intact, the connection of the incident with the accused can be established to seek police custody of the accused.”
The court raised questions on the theory of suicide of Naik’s mother, Kumud. The court questioned that if the prosecution case was believed to be true, there was no reason established for the suicide of Naik’s mother.
“Even if it is considered that, the accused had to pay money to Naik and the other contractors were pestering him for payment, he was depressed, the question remains why did his mother, Kumud Naik, decide to die by suicide or if she had died by suicide? The prosecution has no satisfactory answer on this issue. The chain of circumstances, between the death of Kumud and Anvay Naik, the reason behind their deaths and its connection with the accused is not completely established,” read the order in Marathi.
The court also raised questions on decision for further investigation. The prosecution has failed to put forth grounds on why the previous investigation is incomplete and what issues remained for further investigation. “There is no prima facie intact chain of circumstances to connect the accused with the incident to send the accused to police custody. Hence, the police had closed the case for want of evidence. The said closure report has not been challenged or set aside by any higher court and is still in existence. In such circumstances, there are no reasonable grounds to remand the accused in police custody,” read the court order.
In May 2018, almost a year after Republic TV was launched, Naik and his mother were found dead at their farmhouse in Kavir village of Alibag taluka. Naik’s wife Akshata, 48, had then registered a complaint. A suicide note was found, police said, in which Naik alleged that he and his mother were forced to end their lives because he was not paid dues amounting to ₹5.40 crore by Goswami, Shaikh and Sarda. After the case was closed by the local police last year over “insufficient evidence”, Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh in May 2020 announced a fresh investigation, saying Naik’s daughter Adnya approached him, alleging that the Alibag police had not properly investigated the case. According to the FIR in the abetment to suicide case, police claimed ARG Outlier Media Private Limited – the parent company of Republic TV – didn’t pay dues of ₹83 lakh to Naik for building Republic TV’s studios, called the Bombay Dyeing Studio Project. Police also alleged that Shaikh didn’t pay Naik ₹4 crore for his project in Andheri in MumbaI, while Sarda didn’t pay ₹55 lakh for his projects at Magarpatta and Baner in Pune.