09 November,2020 03:29 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Arnab Goswami sitting in a police van after his arrest. Pic/Atul Kamble
The Bombay High Court on Monday refused to grant bail to Republic TV Managing Director and Chief Editor Arnab Goswami and asked him to approach the lower court for bail.
A division bench of Justice S.S. Shinde and Justice M.S. Karnik asked him to file for regular bail under Section 439 of the CrPC with the Alibaug court and directed that it should be decided on merits within four days, "without being influenced by observations" by the HC's observations.
The division bench also posted Goswami's writ petition - seeking quashing of the police FIR against him - for hearing on December 10, and declined to grant his plea to stay the investigations in the case at this stage.
Goswami's team has already filed its bail plea before the Alibaug court on Monday.
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On Sunday, the Raigad police had shifted Goswami from an Alibaug school, where he was temporarily kept, to the Taloja Central Jail in the district.
Goswami was lodged in a school premises since his arrest on November 4, as it serves as a COVID-19 isolation centre for prisoners.
He has been remanded to judicial custody till November 18 by Alibaug Court Chief Judicial Magistrate Sunaina Pingle.
Slamming the move to shift him, wife Samyabrata Ray Goswami claimed that her husband was "dragged and lugged by the Maharashtra Police in a blacked-out police van to Taloja Jail this morning".
She said that her husband repeatedly said his "life was under threat" and the jailer assaulted him after he demanded access to his lawyers, "which was shockingly denied".
"With Arnab (Goswami) publicly disclosing the threat to his life and the atrocities he is facing in custody, the law and order officers and the entire state and national machinery will be held responsible if any harm is inflicted upon my husband," warned Samyabrata in a statement.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Kirit Somaiya rushed to the jail and demanded proper care and security for Goswami while he was kept there.
"The jailer assured me of no harassment to Goswami in jail and proper medical treatment if required will be provided," Somaiya later told mediapersons.
Goswami was arrested early Wednesday by a team of Mumbai Police and Raigad Police in connection with the case of double-suicide of an architect Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik in Alibaug on May 5, 2018.
In a suicide note, Naik had named Goswami and two others -- Feroze Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda -- who allegedly defaulted and failed to clear their dues of over Rs 5 crore for his professional services as agreed upon.
(With inputs from Faizan Khan and agency)
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