The Supreme Court on Monday permitted journalist Siddique Kappan not to report every week at a local police station in Uttar Pradesh as part of a bail condition imposed by the court in 2022. Kappan was arrested in October 2020 for being part of a conspiracy to instigate communal riots in Hathras where a Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped and murdered.
An application was filed by Kappan seeking modification of his bail order of September 9, 2022 which imposed a condition asking him to report every Monday at the local police station in UP. According to him, the bail order allowed him to remain in Delhi for the first six months and thereafter to move to his home in Kerala.
A bench of justices PS Narasimha and Sandeep Mehta said, “We are of the opinion that the condition 2 in our order of September 9, 2022 is to be modified. It shall not be necessary for the petitioner to report to the local police station.”
The UP government, represented by advocate Ruchira Goel, informed the court that the state is not concerned with the application as Kappan is currently staying in Kerala and he has to mark his presence in the local police station in that state.
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Kappan’s lawyer said that the order of the local court had meant the police station to be in Uttar Pradesh. He further prayed for the return of his client’s passport seized from his residence in Kerala. Goel denied having his passport. “We had seized some booklets and incriminating pamphlets from his Delhi residence. We do not have his passport,” she said.
The bench noted that direction for return of passport could not be passed against the UP government. In its order, the court said, “The other prayers in the application (including return of passport) can be agitated independently,” as it disposed the matter.
Kappan was arrested on October 6, 2020 near Hathras and charged with serious offences of criminal conspiracy and terror funding under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). His bail plea was rejected by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court in August 2022. The UP government accused Kappan of using journalism as a cover to propagate activities of the now banned Popular Front of India (PFI).
Kappan, who has denied all allegations, was charged under sections 17 (raising funds for terrorist act) and 18 (criminal conspiracy) of UAPA, besides sedition (Section 124A) and other offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). At the time of arrest, Kappan was working with Malayalam news portal Azhimukhum and claimed that he was unnecessarily linked to PFI due to his earlier stint as a journalist with a PFI-linked newspaper, Thejas.
This claim was countered by the UP government, which produced a statement by the editor of Azhimukhum, saying the channel did not depute him to cover the Hathras incident.
He was arrested while he was on the way to Hathras following the gruesome gang rape of a Dalit woman who died four days later on account of injuries suffered during the assault. Her body was cremated by placing a police cordon around her village to prevent leaders of opposition parties from visiting her family.
While granting bail to Kappan, the court had questioned the evidentiary value of the material produced against him. However, it imposed conditions on Kappan to deposit his passport, not to misuse his freedom by contacting any person involved with the case, and to cooperate with the ongoing probe.