Court takes cognisance of NewsClick charge sheet
Purkayastha and NewsClick’s human resources department head Chakravarty were arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell on October 3 last year
A Delhi court on Tuesday took cognisance of the charge sheet filed in the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case against NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha for allegedly running Chinese propaganda with the intention of undermining India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Stating that there was sufficient evidence against the accused in the case, additional sessions judge (ASJ) Hardeep Kaur directed the prosecution to supply a copy of the charge sheet to Purkayastha. The judge listed the matter for further proceedings and scrutiny of documents on May 31.
“Investigation has further revealed that during CAA/NRC protests, accused Prabir Purkayastha, in pursuance and furtherance of common conspiracy, was not only involved in malicious disinformation campaign using his PPK NewsClick, but had actually been utilizing his employees/partners for the purpose of disbursing cash to the rioters, some of whom have already been arrested in a separate UAPA case and are presently in judicial custody,” the ASJ noted in the order.
On March 30, the Delhi Police Special Cell filed its first charge sheet, running into approximately 8,000 pages including annexures, naming Purkayastha, the founder and editor-in-chief of the news portal and the company PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt. Ltd, which owns the portal, as accused in the case.
Special public prosecutors (SPP) Akhand Pratap Singh and Suraj Rathi, appearing for the Special Cell, apprised the judge that the charge sheet was filed based on the documentary evidence retrieved during the investigation and the statements given by the witnesses and Amit Chakravarty, the accused-turned-approver.
Purkayastha and NewsClick’s human resources department head Chakravarty were arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell on October 3 last year. In January this year, the court had allowed Chakravarty to turn approver in the case.
Though NewsClick was already under the scanners of Delhi police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax Department, the Special Cell registered a first information report (FIR) against the portal and its founder on August 17, 2023.
The case was registered roughly two weeks after an investigation in the New York Times alleged that the portal was part of a global network that received money for pushing Chinese propaganda. The FIR has been registered under sections 13 (unlawful activities), 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for a terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy) and 22C (offences by companies, societies, and trusts) of UAPA, besides sections 153A (promoting enmity) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
The FIR also alleged that Purkayastha had conspired with a group, People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS), to sabotage the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
NewsClick has repeatedly rejected the charges, claiming that proceedings against it were a “blatant attempt” to muzzle the free press.
“The allegations in the FIR, apart from being ex facie untenable and bogus, have been made time and again, in investigations by three government agencies – the Enforcement Directorate, the Economic Offences Wing, Delhi Police, and the income tax department…,” the portal had said in a statement in October last year.
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