SC Extends Arnab Goswami’s Interim Bail For Four Weeks

OB Bureau

November 27, 2020 1:30 pm

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said the interim bail to journalist Arnab Goswami and two others in a two-year-old abetment to suicide case of a businessman will remain in force for a period of four weeks even after the Bombay High Court decides on his plea for quashing of FIR. The apex court also said that the judiciary should ensure that criminal law does not become a weapon for selective harassment of citizens.

The top court had granted interim bail to Goswami on November 11, saying it will be “a travesty of justice” if personal liberty is curtailed.

A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud on Friday gave reasons for granting relief to the TV anchor and two others in the case.

The bench also said the Supreme Court, high courts and lower courts must be alive to the misuse of criminal law by the state machinery. They should ensure criminal law does not become a weapon for the selective harassment of citizens, it said.

“Doors of this court cannot be closed to citizen who has prima facie showed state has misused its power,” it said, adding that deprivation of personal liberty even for a single day is too much.

There is pressing need for courts to remedy institutional problems of delay in dealing with bail applications, it said. Referring to the facts of the case, it said prima facie there is disconnect between FIR and ingredients of offence of abetment to suicide.