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Arnab Goswami was remanded to judicial custody for fourteen days till 18 November by an Alibaug court late on Wednesday, 4 November.
The order of the court comes after the Republic TV founder and editor-in-chief had been arrested earlier in the day in connection with the abetment of suicide case against him being probed by the Maharashtra Police.
The local police force from Raigad had sought 14 days’ remand, on the basis that they needed to question Goswami, and he needed to be kept in custody as he is an ‘influential person’ who might try to alter the investigation.
Goswami, along with two others, Niteish Sarda (Smartworks, owed Rs 55 lakh) and Feroz Shaikh (IcastX/Skimedia, owed Rs 4 crore), have been booked under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide), and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The suicide note of interior designer/architect Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik, discovered by the local police in 2018, Naik said that he and his mother were in acute financial distress, which was why they had decided to take their lives.
The amount owed is said to be Rs 83 lakh.
The case resurfaced after Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh ordered the case to be reopened in May 2020, following an approach by Naik’s daughter Adnya.
Naik’s wife Akshata – who had filed an FIR with the police back in 2018 itself – consistently pushed for the case to be reinvestigated, putting out several videos about the matter on social media.
Goswami and Republic have denied the allegations, and claimed that 90 percent of the amount due to Naik’s company for its work on the channel’s Mumbai studio had been paid as per the contract.
When produced before the Alibaug magistrate on 4 November, Goswami had claimed he had sustained injuries on his hand and back during the police’s attempts to arrest him.
Another FIR has been registered by the Mumbai Police against Arnab Goswami, his wife and son for assaulting a lady police officer at the time of his arrest.
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