Supreme Court Denies Bail To Jharkhand-Based Journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh In UAPA Case

The Supreme Court on January 27 dismissed a Special Leave Petition against the Jharkhand High Court's order dated December 6, 2023, whereby the High Court denied bail to journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh in a case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 over alleged links to the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist). A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Rajesh Bindal stated that it was not inclined to interfere with the order of the High Court. The petitioner stated that he is an independent journalist and has been reporting on various social issues such as the protests of the displaced people, encounters by security forces in the State and massive arrests of Adivasi people alleged to have been framed as Maoists in Jharkhand. The present case arises from a first information report FIR No. 67/2021 filed against some alleged members of the Maoist organisation.Originally, the petitioner was not named in the FIR as claimed. However, during interrogation, some alleged SSD Cards were obtained from the primary accused Prashant Bose and others by the State police which allegedly had incriminating material against the petitioner, as stated in the SLP.From the said material, it was claimed that the petitioner was an active member of the Maoist party who knew about the whereabouts of the primary accused Prashant Bose, Sheela Marandi and others named in the FIR. Based on this purported evidence, a supplementary chargesheet was filed on May 7, 2022, and the petitioner was subsequently arrested on July 17, 2022. He has been in custody since then. In the SLP, the arrest of the petitioner has been described as a "malicious campaign of persecution". It has been stated that the petitioner was arrested in 2019 on alleged UAPA charges for being a member of the CPI(M), where he was released on bail in December 2019 as police failed to file chargesheet within the stipulated time.It may be recalled that the petitioner was one of the petitioners in the 2021 Pegasus case. He alleged that he was targeted by the Pegasus spyware and approached the Supreme Court.The High Court denying him bail, observed:"Thus, from perusal of various paragraphs of the chargesheet it appears that the appellant is active member of the banned naxal outfit and he has been propagating the idea of terrorism for many years by giving speeches, abetting the underground PLGA group to influence and add other people into the armed cadre group to strengthen their parties to fight the state agencies."Case Details: RUPESH KUMAR SINGH v. STATE OF JHARKHAND|Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s). 12058/2024Appearances: Prateek K. Chadha, AOR; Advocates Sreekar Aechuri, Surbhi Soni and Aniket Chauhan (for Petitioners) and Advocates P.S. Sudheer, Pawan Kishore Singh and Dipankar Singh and Madhusmita Bora, AOR (for Respondents)Click Here To Read Order

Supreme Court Denies Bail To Jharkhand-Based Journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh In UAPA Case

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

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