The brazen arrest of senior journalist Arnab Goswami by the Maharashtra police has become an issue which is now spiralling out of control for the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, as its clear motives of pursuing a vendetta campaign against the Republic TV founder and editor-in-chief begin to be revealed before the highest courts of the country. Arnab Goswami has been arrested in a two-year-old abetment to suicide case, which had been closed by the Maharashtra police last year, but which was reopened last month without the permission of the requisite court. As such, Arnab’s arrest had been called prima facie ‘illegal’ by the Alibag court.
On Friday, the Supreme Court of India launched a scathing attack against the Maharashtra government, and specifically the Maharashtra legislative assembly secretary for attempting to intimidate Arnab Goswami. The secretary, in a letter dated October 13 to Arnab Goswami had warned him from approaching the Supreme Court against the breach of privilege proceedings which have been initiated against him by Shiv Sena MLAs from both houses of the Maharashtra assembly. The warning was made on the premise of the matter being confidential in nature.
The Supreme Court, taking serious note of the said warning to a citizen of the country said that it was absolutely shocking and unprecedented that Goswami had been threatened by the assembly secretary against approaching the top court. “The clear intention of the author of the letter seems to be to intimidate the petitioner because he approached the Court and to threaten him with a penalty for doing so,” it said. “The assembly should be well advised to understand that the right to approach this Court under Art 32 of Constitution is itself a fundamental right,” the top court added.
Reacting to the threat-laced letter to Arnab Goswami, the Chief Justice asked, “What is this?” Lashing out at the nature of the letter, the CJI said ‘How dare he say this, what is Article 32 for?’ adding ‘We have a serious question on the author of this letter and we find it extremely difficult to overlook this.’ Consequently, the apex court has issued a notice of contempt against the secretary of the Maharashtra assembly. The top court has given the secretary – Vilas Athawale two-weeks’ time to show cause as to why contempt should not be issued against him in terms of Article 129 of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court granted protection from arrest to Goswami until the next hearing, which is after two weeks, in relation to the case of breach of privilege proceedings initiated against him by the Maharashtra assembly. Trampling upon freedom of speech and expression, the notice of the Maharashtra assembly had said that Arnab Goswami had breached the privileges of the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra, alleging that he had passed derogatory remarks against Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. The notice also threatened to jail him if he does not apologise.
