New Delhi, June 16: in an interim relief to the editor of tamil weekly nakkeeran, the Supreme Court today restrained the Tamil Nadu government from filing chargesheet against him in the Pota case in which he had been arrested. A vacation bench comprising Justice R C Lahoti and Justice Brijesh Kumar, while recording the objections of the state government counsel C S Vaidyanathan to the plea of the editor, directed that the chargeseet against him be not filed till further orders. At the outset, Vaidyanathan pointed out that the editor, Gopalan, had challenged the constitutional validity of a provision of Pota, in which the Apex Court had reserved the verdict. The bench then said it would await the judgement of the court in the matter pertaining to the constitutional validity of the provisions of Pota and ordered that till further orders the chargesheet in the Pota case against Gopalan be not filed by the state police.
Objecting to this, Vaidyanathan stated that investigation in the case was almost complete and the chargesheet could be filed in a short time.
Appearing for Gopalan, senior advocate T R Andhiyarujina submitted that the police had been framing the editor for his pursuit of journalism and had converted a case of missing man to that of a murder, which was later made into a case of sedition and then Pota charges were slapped on him.
Bureau Report