SC to hear Siddique Kapan plea in the third week of January

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an affidavit filed by Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) against another affidavit filed by the Uttar Pradesh government in scribe arrest of the journalist Siddique Kapan.

Justice SA Bobde was heading the bench and allowed the journalist body to file its response in the case. However the bench also featured Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian who did not agreed to the submission of the affidavit by senior advocate Kapil Sibal.

“First two weeks (in January) are miscellaneous (weeks when fresh matters will be heard),” the bench said in a hearing conducted through video conferencing.

“We’d like to argue the matter in the apex court itself and implead Kappan’s wife and others in the plea,” Sibal had said. “The high court has granted one month’s time on the habeas corpus plea of the other accused in the same case and I want to argue here,” Sibal had said, adding, “Hear me finally.”

Kappan was arrested on October 5 while he was on his way to Hathras for reporting the alleged mislead of Uttar Pradesh police in the 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped by upper cast.