An Unusual FIR! Delhi Police Names Lawyer For Providing Legal Defence To Client On NewsClick Case
In a ‘terror’ FIR (First Information Report) put by Delhi Police against news portal NewsClick, named lawyer Gautam Bhatia for providing legal defence to his clients. The FIR claims Mr Bhatia as the ‘’key person’’ while ‘’big Chinese telecom companies like Xiaomi, Vivo’’ purportedly ‘’incorporated thousands of shell companies in India’’ violating PMLA (Prevention of Money-Laundering Act) and FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act), reported the Newslaundry.
The report alleges the Chinese companies illegally routed foreign funds into India and promoted false narratives through paid news. It claims that funds were routed from China in a ‘’circuitous and camouflaged’’ manner disrupting the ‘’sovereignty’’ of the country causing ‘’disaffection against India’’, CNBC quoted the FIR.
“Shri Gautam Bhatia (key person) conspired to create a Legal Community Network in India to campaign for and put-up spirited defence of legal cases against aforementioned Chinese telecom companies in return for benefits by these telecom companies”, says the report.
Rajya Sabha MP and National spokesperson of All India Trinamool Congress, Saket Gokhale, on Saturday questioned the FIR and termed the move as ‘’unprecedented’’ to insert a lawyer who stood in legal defense inside the first information report. He charged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as the raid and arrest on journalist’s lacks ‘’merit and has purely been done out of vendetta’’ politics by the BJP, ruling party at the centre.
‘’Invoking terror charges has only been done to ensure that the journalists stay in jail as long as possible before they get acquitted because the process is the punishment’’, he added on X (formerly Twitter).
It is UNPRECEDENTED that a lawyer can be named in an FIR for providing legal defense to a client. Every entity is entitled to a legal defense & lawyers cannot be charged no matter what the accusations against his client company are.
Delhi Police has clearly filed a frivolous… pic.twitter.com/XCld6cGR6B
— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) October 7, 2023
It was on October 3, the Delhi police arrested Prabir Purkhayastha and Amit Chakravarthy citing violations of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and both were remanded on the next day for seven days. Prabir Purkayastha is the founder and editor-in-chief of Delhi-based news portal NewsClick while Amit Chakravarty serves as the head of the company’s human resources department. They were arrested following an extensive day-long operation involving searches, seizures, and detentions, on Tuesday.
According to Delhi Police statements, NewsClick is said to have purportedly received approximately ₹38 crore from entities believed to have connections with China. These funds were allegedly utilized to promote pro-China content on the website. Police sources further explained that out of this amount, ₹29 crore was allegedly received as fees for export services, while ₹9 crore was obtained as foreign direct investment (FDI) through the inflation of share prices, reported NDTV.
The Delhi high court will hear the plea challenging the arrest and custody on October 9.
