Mumbai: Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking to stay the filing of the chargesheet in the 2018 Anvay Naik suicide case. He has also filed another plea challenging the orders of Maharashtra's Home Minister Anil Deshmukh to re-open the suicide case, which was closed by Raigad Police last year.
A bench of Justices Sambhaji Shinde and Makarand Karnik was urgently moved by Goswami on Thursday.
In his plea, Goswami has also taken exception to Deshmukh's statements in a press meet, wherein the home minister had said that a "strong chargesheet" would be filed against Goswami and other accused in the case.
The plea states that neither the home minister nor any other authority in the government had powers to order a fresh probe in the matter which was closed a year before by the local police.
Goswami has argued that the re-opening was possible only after prior sanction by a judicial authority such as the magistrate.
Accordingly, Goswami has questioned the decision to reopen the case and has urged the bench to transfer the probe to either the CBI or any other "independent agency" which could probe the case impartially.
Apart from these, Goswami has reiterated that his arrest on November 4 was illegal and thus the FIR registered against him must be quashed, since it is bad in law.
Arrested on November 4 for abetting the suicide of Naik, Goswami was denied bail by the HC bench led by Justice Shinde. However, the SC overruled the orders and granted him bail later.
