New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday (April 28) directed the UP government to shift Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan lodged in Mathura Jail to a government hospital in Delhi for medical remedy.
The bench comprising Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, Justices S. Kant and A.S. Bopanna was listening to the habeas corpus petition filed by Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) searching for Kappan`s launch.
The Court stated that he has to be given remedy at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital or AIIMS or some other government hospital in Delhi and after restoration, he has to be despatched again to Mathura jail, the place he’s beneath custody.
Kappan is charged with UAPA on the bottom that he was attempting to create communal unrest in UP after the Hathras gangrape-murder crime.
Earlier within the day, the CJI headed bench heard the arguments of Advocate Wills Mathew for KUWJ, who argued that Kappan was illegally arrested and that the allegations within the FIR and the chargesheet didn’t represent any offence.
The UP Government within the morning filed an affidavit stating that Kappan`s RT-PCR take a look at confirmed a adverse outcome, and that he has been discharged from Mathura hospital and despatched again to jail.
Wills Mathew, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that Kappan was a small-time, low profile journalist doing part-time reporting for a web based information portal. He was receiving a wage of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per thirty days. As a journalist, Kappan can have to come into contact with individuals in all walks of life, and he can’t be painted as a wrongdoer merely on the idea of his affiliation, Mathew argued.
Mathew careworn that the UAPA case was slapped towards Kappan solely on the idea of conjectures and wild allegations.
The Solicitor General Tushar Mehta doubted the journalistic credentials of Kappan, by saying that he was holding an expired press card of a newspaper referred to as `Thejus` which had shut down three years in the past.
