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Supreme Court grants bail to Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan
The UP Police had arrested Kappan and three others on 5 October, 2020, from the Mant area of Mathura claiming that the accused were travelling to Hathras to disturb peace and harmony in the area. Read further on Dynamite News
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan who was booked by the Uttar Pradesh police under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), while observing that every person has the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression.
A bench of Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and P Narasimha directed that Kappan shall be produced before the trial court within three days and he shall be released on bail.
It directed that upon release Kappan shall stay in Delhi and mark his presence in a local police station on every Monday. After six weeks he can relocate to his native place in Kerala and report to the local police station, it said.
He was directed not to leave Delhi without permission of the trial court. Kappan or his lawyer shall attend every single hearing of trial court and he shall surrender his passport before release, the bench further stated.
The Supreme Court said Kappan shall not misuse the liberty or be in touch with any person concerned with the matter or are accused.
It also granted liberty to Kappan to apply for bail in the proceedings initiated against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002.
The order of the top court came on a plea filed by Kappan against the order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court that had rejected his bail application saying "the use of tainted money cannot be ruled out". Kappan was booked under UAPA and other charges in the alleged Hathras conspiracy case.
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During the hearing of Kappan's bail plea, the bench observed that every person has the Right To Freedom of Speech and Expression.
CJI Lalit said, "Every person has a right to free expression, he was trying to show that victim needs justice and raise a common voice" and further asked the Uttar Pradesh government will this be a crime in the eyes of law.
The bench said that the material produced by the prosecution attributed to Kappan as a toolkit seemed to be in a foreign language.
Backgrounder:
The Uttar Pradesh Police arrested Kappan and three others on 5 October, 2020, from the Mant area of Mathura. Police had claimed that the accused were travelling to Hathras to disturb peace and harmony in the area.
The police had said it arrested four people having links with the PFI in Mathura and identified the arrested persons as Siddique from Malappuram, Atiq-ur Rehman from Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmed from Bahraich and Alam from Rampur.
However, Kappan, a reporter for Malayalam news portal Azhimukham and secretary of the Delhi unit of Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), has maintained that he was going there to report on the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras. In April this year, the Special Task Force (STF) of UP Police filed the charge-sheet against him and seven others under the UAPA and some sections of the Information Technology Act. (ANI)