Within hours of Arnab Goswami approaching the Bombay High Court with 2 razor-sharp petitions exposing it, the Maharashtra Police has filed a chargesheet against Republic Media Network’s Editor-in-Chief in the Anvay Naik suicide case.
Shockingly, the filing of the chargesheet comes eight days after the Supreme Court had said that prima facie no case had been made against Goswami in the case.
“The chargesheet filing comes seven days after Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had publicly declared that it would be filed, thereby making the collusion between the executive and the law and order machinery crystal clear. The political instructions directing the investigation has been established beyond doubt and now the entire case is malafide,” Republic said in a statement.
“The filing of a chargesheet is a complete mockery of the Supreme Court, and its sanctity as the highest court of the country,” the statement added.
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This move is a scathing indictment of the state of affairs in Maharashtra, where a chargesheet is filed in open defiance of the Supreme Court’s observations that noted that the basic ingredients of an offence were not even established by the FIR in the case.
In fact, the Apex Court had said, “Prima facie, on the application of the test which has been laid down by this court in a consistent line of authority which has been noted above, it cannot be said that the appellant was guilty of having abetted the suicide within the meaning of Section 306 of the IPC.”
Shockingly, this race to file a chargesheet comes within 12 hours of Arnab Goswami filing 2 applications citing how the Home Minister had made an open announcement about a “strong chargesheet” in the abetment to suicide case despite scathing observations by the Supreme Court to the contrary.
The interim applications filed by Arnab lay down solid evidence to establish malice by the state machinery. The chargesheet is nothing but a shallow attempt to play cat and mouse with the highest court which has already made it clear personal liberty cannot be targeted with misuse of criminal law.
