The Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court’s order that refused to grant him interim bail in the 2018 abetment to suicide of an interior designer Anvay Naik.
Earlier on Monday, the Bombay High Court refused to grant interim relief to Arnab Goswami and two others in connection with the case and directed him to approach a lower court to seek bail in Raigad district, where the case has been filed, for regular bail.
The division bench of Justices S.S. Shinde and M.S. Karnik, while rejecting the interim bail pleas of Goswami and two other accused Feroze Shaikh and Nitish Sarda said “no case has been made out for us (court) to exercise our extraordinary jurisdiction”.
In the present plea moved through advocate Nirnimesh Dube, Goswami made the Maharashtra government, Mumbai Police, central government and other respondents in the matter.
The application comes on the day when Alibaug Sessions Court is hearing the revision application filed by Raigad Police seeking police custody of Goswami who is currently lodged in Taloja jail.
Goswami has been in judicial custody since November 4 following his arrest in relation to a case concerning the suicide of interior designer Anvay Naik, resident of Alibaug, over alleged non-payment of dues by companies of the accused, in 2018.
Goswami had alleged that he along with his mother-in-law, father-in-law, son, and wife were physically assaulted by the officers of the Mumbai Police, who entered Goswami’s residence, to arrest him at the early hours of November 4.
The suicide case, in which a closure report was filed in 2019, was reopened after Naik’s wife Akshata approached a court. In September this year, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had ordered a re-investigation into the case after a fresh complaint by Naik’s daughter.
Naik had apparently left behind a suicide note alleging that Goswami, Feroze Shaikh, and Nitish Sarda had not cleared his dues to the tune of Rs 5 crore and that caused extreme financial distress.
A video had gone viral showing Goswami resisting his arrest at his home. Later, he had been produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate Sunaina Pingle who had remanded the Republic TV founder to judicial custody till November 18.
