Delhi High Court issues notice to NewsClick, Prabir Purkayastha in ED plea to vacate no coercive action order

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to news website NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha in a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking vacation of earlier orders protecting them from coercive action in a money laundering case..Justice Saurabh Banerjee examined the ED's application and said that the same has merit and requires consideration. The Bench, therefore, directed Purkayastha and NewsClick to file their replies in two weeks. ED will file its rejoinder in a week and the case will now be considered on September 6. .ED's Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain argued that this is case of a "huge criminal conspiracy" and that crores of rupees were received by NewsClick for paid news. Counsel appearing for NewsClick, however, contended that the ED has been taking adjournments in the case for the last five to six dates and were now showing grave urgency. The Court denied NewsClick's request to take up this plea with the other cases filed by them and said that these proceedings are independent of the other cases pending..ED filed this application just days after a New York Times report alleged that NewsClick received funds from a US tech baron named Neville Roy Singham, who was funding Chinese propaganda. Though the ED's application did not mention the NYT report, it said that it has come across some new material against the news website, which would be furnished to the Court in a sealed cover. .NewsClick and Purkayastha had approached the High Court seeking a copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) filed by the ED against them.While hearing the case, the Court had passed interim orders on June 21, 2021 and July 20, 2021 directing the agency not to take any coercive action against the website and its founder.The ED has now argued that the interim protection granted by the Court virtually amounts to anticipatory bail to Purkayastha."It is settled law that the grant of directions in the nature of no coercive steps during the course of investigation virtually amounts to granting Anticipatory Bail to the accused without satisfaction of the conditions for grant of Bail provided in Section 438 CrPC. In addition since the present proceedings are under PMLA, the twin conditions of Section 45 are also required to be satisfied for grant of Anticipatory Bail as also recently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary v. Union of India," the agency has argued.It added that the direction for interim protection was passed considering the possibility of supply of ECIR to the accused. However, the same is now not possible in view of a "clear and unequivocal" holding by the apex court that the ECIR is an internal document..Among the allegations made against the digital media website are overvaluing of shares, diverting funds and violation of foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations.Back in February 2021, the ED had raided the homes and offices of Newsclick founder and its employees. The raids lasted for more than 4 days whilst Purkayastha was detained at home.Following this, NewsClick moved the Delhi High Court for directions to the ED to issue a copy of the ECIR. It also sought protection from any form of coercive action in the meantime. The ECIR was registered based on a first information report filed by the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW)..NewsClick's petition seeking quashing of the EOW FIR is also pending before the High Court.