Abetment to suicide case: Arnab Goswami files interim application seeking stay of investigation

Republic TV chief Arnab Goswami filed an urgent interim application before the Bombay High Court today, seeking a stay on the filing of a chargesheet and all further proceedings in the abetment to suicide case against him in the death of Anvay Naik in 2018.

According to LiveLaw, Goswami also urged the court to transfer the investigation to the CBI, in case the relief of stay was not granted.

In the application, Goswami said his arrest on November 4 was done with "malafide intention and in a completely illegal manner". LiveLaw noted that Goswami based this allegation of malafide intent on a press conference held by Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh on November 29. In the press conference, Deshmukh had said a chargesheet would be filed against Goswami "soon".

Goswami had been arrested in the two-year-old case along with two others, Firoze Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda. Anvay Naik, an interior designer, had been found dead with his mother Kumud Naik in May 2018. A suicide note purportedly written by Anvay claimed he had been forced to take his life because of financial problems caused by the non-payment of dues amounting to over Rs 5 crore by Goswami and the two others.

The police had closed the case in 2019. However, it was reopened in May this year after Anvay’s daughter, Adnya Naik, approached the Maharashtra home minister, complaining that the Alibaug police had not investigated the "non-payment of dues from Arnab Goswami’s Republic".

The matter is listed for hearing before the Bombay High Court on December 10.