That fabricated case too has crumbled
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Yet another detective fiction concocted by the regime crumbles to pieces. The Delhi High Court has quashed the cases registered by the Delhi Police and the Enforcement Directorate against the independent news portal ‘NewsClick’, which had been charged with egregious offences. Striking down the cases, the High Court observed that the agencies had conducted their investigation based on mere conjecture, devoid of any concrete evidence, and termed the actions of the central agencies a blatant abuse of power. It was on the ground that the allegations, even if accepted in their entirety, would fail to hold that the Court quashed both the FIR registered by the Delhi Police and the money laundering case initiated by the ED.
It was in October 2023 that the case was instituted against ‘NewsClick’ under the grave accusation of attempting to undermine the integrity of India by illicitly receiving foreign funding. Following this, after a gruelling 102-hour ordeal of raids and interrogations, the portal’s founder and Editor-in-Chief, Prabir Purkayastha, along with HR Head Amit Chakraborty, was arrested. Not only were the executives and the journalists who penned its news reports and articles subjected to interrogations as though they were hardened criminals, but the phones and laptops of forty-six individuals were also seized.
A spurious remark in the American newspaper The New York Times was the thread for the Delhi Police, functioning under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, to swoop down upon ‘NewsClick’. There lies a stark irony here: a Central Government that routinely dismisses international indices on religious freedom, hunger, and minority persecution as products of vested foreign interests chose to rely entirely on a report in a foreign newspaper to unleash the state apparatus against a domestic media house. Yet, readers and the journalistic fraternity alike know all too well that this was never the true motive—a truth known above all to the authorities ensconced in the corridors of power in Delhi.
‘NewsClick’ is a media outlet that has steadfastly chronicled the ceaseless violations of human rights within the country and the resistance forged against them. In 2018, it brought every single stride of the historic Kisan Long March from Nashik to Mumbai directly to its readers. It boldly raised questions to a regime that handled the devastating Covid crisis with utter negligence. When the historic farmers' protest of 2020 in Delhi became a thorn in the government’s flesh, even as the mainstream media was forced to retreat under the administration's glare, this modest establishment stood resolutely by the peasants until their ultimate victory—and therein lay the true catalyst for the state-sponsored witch-hunt that followed.
Indeed, it was for uttering unpalatable truths that the ‘MediaOne’ television channel had its hands tied when the state refused to renew its broadcasting licence. Following an epic legal battle, the apex court in the country struck down the government’s arbitrary decision. Through a relentless campaign of raids, arrests, and intimidation, the state continues to silence numerous media houses, whilst a host of draconian legislations are being hastily engineered to subvert the very foundations of press freedom and the liberty of expression.
“The judgement of the Delhi High Court vindicates our position. It also takes a strong stand in support of independent journalism in India, " the portal remarked while welcoming the judicial verdict. It is the legal battle waged by Prabir Purkayastha and his team, unyielding in the face of intimidation and incarceration, that has now seen triumph. Yet, how many institutions, or indeed how many journalists, possess the resilience and the legal resources to mount such a formidable struggle? Today, the nation has many an establishment that collapses under the sheer weight of state persecution, denied the support of even social media to speak out against the witch-hunt.
As Narendra Modi completes a dozen years in the office of Prime Minister, he secures not merely the distinction of longevity in that high seat, but also the dubious crown of presiding over an era that has witnessed the most onslaughts against the fourth estate in the nation's history. Rather than training its sights on dissenting voices—on those journalists and media houses who dare to proclaim that the nation is being steered off course, would the regime, even at this eleventh hour, realize that the true path forward lies not in silencing the media and mediapersons, but in course correct itself?