Assailing an FIR filed by Delhi police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and a subsequent case by the ED for alleged money laundering, the news portal's senior advocate Kapil Sibal told a bench of Justice Saurabh Banerjee that it had not violated any foreign direct investment rules. "This is a completely dishonest, malafide complaint filed to harass a media channel. Now the man is in jail," Sibal said, referring to NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha's arrest under anti-terror law UAPA.
"In the new FIR, they say the money came from China.... You can't send people to jail like this. He is a 72-year-old man," Sibal added.
According to the senior counsel, no offence was made out in the present cash-related cases as the funds from an investor abroad came in due compliance with applicable laws and practices.
"RBI itself says I have not violated any law. Yet prosecution is going on. ED is going on. The law is in my favour....I am being prosecuted. Nothing can be more malafide in this country. That's why the poor people (Purkayastha and others) are languishing in jail (because) the news portal is against the establishment," Sibal argued.
Kajal Agarwal
