Days after he turned approver, NewsClick HR head withdraws plea against remand

NewsClick HR head Amit Chakraborty has withdrawn his plea before the Supreme Court against his arrest and police remand in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case against him, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta adjourned the matter till January 30 and allowed Chakraborty, who has since turned approver in the case, to withdraw his plea.

NewsClick founding editor Prabir Purkayastha and Chakraborty had earlier moved the apex court challenging the Delhi High Court’s order upholding a trial court decision to remand them to police custody.

Chakraborty had last month moved court seeking to turn approver in the case accusing the news portal of receiving foreign funds to spread anti-India propaganda. This came days after the Patiala House Court granted the Delhi Police 60-day extension of judicial custody to finish its probe.

In December, NewsClick had termed the freezing of its bank accounts as an “administrative-legal siege” and said this had “left all our employees shocked” at the year-end festive season. In a statement, the news outfit said it has been unable to make any bank payments since the evening of December 18. It said that it “appears to be a continuation of the administrative-legal siege of the news portal which began with the Enforcement Directorate raids in February 2021, followed by an IT department survey in September 2021, and the October 3, 2023 crackdown by the Delhi Police Special Cell”.

NewsClick has repeatedly denied the charges against it. Its statement earlier said that “NewsClick has always complied with the laws of the land, including all tax regulations. The claims levelled by the Income Tax Department are without any basis.”

Prabir Purkayastha and Chakraborty were arrested under the UAPA on October 3 last year, after The New York Times alleged that NewsClick was among Chinese propaganda outlets funded by US businessman Neville Roy Singham. Later, in a four-page rebuttal, Singham had called the NYT article “misleading” and an “innuendo-laden hit piece”.

The Delhi police had questioned about 50 journalists linked to NewsClick and seized their electronic devices in the run up to the arrests.

The allegations against the news portal revolve around China-linked foreign funding violations. The FIR in the case, which also named incarcerated activist Gautam Navlakha, stated that Purkayastha, Chakraborty and Singham had allegedly discussed “how to create a map of India without Kashmir and to show Arunachal Pradesh as disputed area”.

In November, the Enforcement Directorate summoned Singham in the case, and the Delhi police had sought “financial” details of five companies linked to him in a letter to the US authorities.

NewsClick denied all the allegations, terming the police action as an attempt to “stifle fearless voices”.

Newslaundry had earlier reported that with the NewsClick office sealed, and the journalists’ devices seized, the news portal was struggling to publish with borrowed devices. Read about it here.

This report was published with AI assistance.