High-profile TV journalist Arnab Goswami, arrested in a 2018 suicide abetment case, will spend another night in a school in Alibaug, while his plea seeking interim bail will be heard by the Bombay High Court on Friday.
A magistrate in Alibaug, while remanding Goswami in judicial custody till November 18, had observed that his arrest was prima facie illegal, according to a detailed court order made available on Thursday.
Police filed a revision application before the Alibaug sessions court on Thursday, challenging the order passed by the magistrate there a day earlier.
Goswami was arrested on Wednesday from his residence at Lower Parel in Mumbai for allegedly abetting the suicide of architect and interior designer Anvay Naik, and was taken to the Alibaug police station in neighbouring Raigad district.
Alibaug, a coastal town, is around 90 km from Mumbai.
Goswami was produced before a magistrate’s court, which remanded him in judicial custody till November 18.
He then moved the High Court against the “illegal arrest”, sought a stay to the investigation and a direction to the police to release him. He also sought that the FIR against him be quashed.
A division bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik on Thursday directed Goswami to make the complainant in the case, Akshata Naik, Anvay’s wife, a respondent to his plea.
“We have to hear all the parties concerned before considering the interim relief sought. We have to also hear the complainant as the family of the deceased has filed a petition here seeking transfer of the probe,” the bench said.
“The respondents (the Maharashtra government and the complainant) are entitled to respond….We will consider the interim relief sought tomorrow,” the court said.