MUMBAI, Dec 3: The editor-in-chief of Republic TV Arnab Goswami has moved the Bombay high court seeking a stay on the ongoing inquiry by the Mumbai Police into Anvay Naik’s suicide case in 2018 and transfer the investigation to CBI or any other independent agency.
The matter will be heard by the Bombay high court on December 10.
Goswami and two of his alleged accomplices were arrested on November 4 on charges of abetting the suicide of interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother in 2018. In a suicide note, Naik had claimed that he was ending his life because Goswami and two others refused to pay his dues for the development of the Republic TV studio and two other companies. His mother had also committed suicide consequent to her son’s death.
Goswami and two others were granted bail by the Supreme Court on November 11.
The journalist filed the fresh petition in the Bombay high court after the Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh has said a charge sheet would be filed soon in the case.
The Supreme Court has observed that prima facie evaluation of the FIR against Goswami and two others did not establish the ingredients of the offence of abetment to suicide. A bench of justices D Y Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee said the high court should not foreclose itself from the exercise of the power when a citizen has been “arbitrarily deprived of their personal liberty in an excess of state power.”
(Manas Dasgupta)