NewsClick Founder, HR Head Move Delhi HC To Quash FIR In Chinese Funding Case

NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and HR head Amit Chakravarty have filed a petition in the Delhi High Court to challenge their arrests and quashing of FIR lodged by Delhi police accusing them of receiving money for promoting pro-China propaganda.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned their plea before Delhi HC bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula.

Sibal requested the court to list the plea on Friday (6 October). “This is the NewsClick matter where the arrest has been made entirely illegally. Can that be listed today? We’ve got the diary number. We’ve also filed the another plea which has a diary number," Sibal said, reports News18.

Purkayastha and Chakravarty were arrested for their alleged involvement in receiving funds from China to spread false information about the central government through NewsClick.

On Thursday, journalists Urmilesh and Abhisar Sharma were questioned by the Delhi police for the second time this week.

A total of 46 journalists and contributors to NewsClick were questioned on Tuesday, and their mobile phones and other electronic devices were confiscated.

According to the remand copy submitted by the Delhi Police in court on Wednesday, Purkayastha and his associates—Joseph Raj, Anoop Chakraborty (brother of Amit Chakraborty), and Bappaditya Sinha (promoter of Virtunet Systems Pvt Ltd)—have allegedly siphoned off "illegally routed foreign funds".

The remand copy further states, “It is also learnt that aforementioned funds were distributed to Gautam Navlakha, associates of Teesta Seetalwaad namely Javed Anand, Tamara, Jibran, Urmilesh, Aratrika Halder, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Trina Shankar, Abhisar Sharma, etc.,”