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NEW DELHI: Pulling up the Jharkhand police, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the interim bail granted by the high court to a journalist who was allegedly picked up by cops from his bedroom in the dead of the night.
Dismissing the Jharkhand government‘s appeal against grant of interim bail to journalist Arup Bhattacharjee, one of the directors of the News 11 media group, the SC said, “This is nothing but a state excess to harass a journalist. You go to his residence at midnight and pull him out of the bedroom. This is not the way to treat a journalist or any one for that matter.”
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli found no infirmity with the Jharkhand HC’s decision to grant Arup Bhattacharjee, the journalist, interim bail and consider initiating contempt proceedings against police for not following the procedure before effecting arrest, as mandated by the SC’s 2014 judgment in the Arnesh Kumar case.
According to PTI, the apex court told the Jharkhand government, “You are dealing with a person who is a journalist and journalists are not terrorists”.
On a petition filed by Bhattacharjee’s wife seeking bail for him, the HC’s Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi had on July 19 taken exception to the misuse of arrest powers by the Dhanbad Police, ordered release of the journalist on interim bail and asked the state government to file response.
The petitioner had alleged that the police arrested her husband, without following the due procedure of law, at 12.20 am on July 17 from the bedroom of the couple’s residence. She said the police moved an application before the magistrate who issued an arrest warrant.
Dismissing the Jharkhand government‘s appeal against grant of interim bail to journalist Arup Bhattacharjee, one of the directors of the News 11 media group, the SC said, “This is nothing but a state excess to harass a journalist. You go to his residence at midnight and pull him out of the bedroom. This is not the way to treat a journalist or any one for that matter.”
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli found no infirmity with the Jharkhand HC’s decision to grant Arup Bhattacharjee, the journalist, interim bail and consider initiating contempt proceedings against police for not following the procedure before effecting arrest, as mandated by the SC’s 2014 judgment in the Arnesh Kumar case.
According to PTI, the apex court told the Jharkhand government, “You are dealing with a person who is a journalist and journalists are not terrorists”.
On a petition filed by Bhattacharjee’s wife seeking bail for him, the HC’s Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi had on July 19 taken exception to the misuse of arrest powers by the Dhanbad Police, ordered release of the journalist on interim bail and asked the state government to file response.
The petitioner had alleged that the police arrested her husband, without following the due procedure of law, at 12.20 am on July 17 from the bedroom of the couple’s residence. She said the police moved an application before the magistrate who issued an arrest warrant.
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