The Hindu : SC notice to T.N. on journalist's plea

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 10, 2003

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SC notice to T.N. on journalist's plea

By Our Legal Correspondent

New DELHI May 9. The Supreme Court today ordered notice to the Tamil Nadu Government on an application from the Editor of a Tamil biweekly, Nakkeeran, R.R. Gopal, for a direction to entrust to the Central Bureau of Investigation the circumstances leading to his arrest and registration of cases against him including the one under POTA.

A Bench, comprising Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Justice G.P. Mathur, asked the State to file its response within one week on this application as well as on the main petition challenging the provisions of POTA in which notice had been issued. The case would now come up before the vacation Bench for further hearing.

Appearing for Gopal, senior counsel T.R. Andhyarujina submitted that the cases against the Editor were the gravest form of harassment and victimisation of a journalist by the Government. One case after another was being filed against him and even cases pertaining to 1998 were being reopened and he was being falsely included as an accused. In his application, Gopal said that even after the arrest, the State police had continued its canard of harassment. Initially a false case was registered against him and he was arrested and later it was converted into one under POTA.

He alleged that he had been physically harmed and ill-treated by the police while in police custody and his plea for medical examination had been rejected.

On April 26, without informing the advocates the CBCID police took him to the Sathyamangalam area and taken to an unknown place in the forest. A team led by the DSP, Nagarajan, dug a pit and planted a bag with some materials inside, lifted it, and asked him to pose for a photograph. He declined to oblige but he was threatened at gunpoint and a photograph taken.

The petitioner submitted that the continued harassment at the hands of the police, the way in which he was being tortured and the way things were being planted, would all show that no proper investigation would be done by the State police.

Hence he prayed for a direction to entrust the investigation to the CBI the circumstances under which he was arrested; the alleged recovery of arms and a pamphlet in an alleged bag; the fresh cases filed against him and recoveries alleged to have been made in the forest.

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