New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to submit medical records of journalist Siddique Kappan who was arrested last year on his way to Hathras where a young Dalit woman had died after being allegedly gang-raped.
Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) alleged that Kappan has been chained to a cot in the hospital he was admitted to after falling in the bathroom and later testing positive for COVID-19.
The UP government refuted the allegations that Kappan has been chained to a cot at the hospital and said it would file a short reply on his medical records by tomorrow.
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A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and A S Bopanna asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state government, to file the medical records by Wednesday.
At the outset, Mehta said he had a preliminary objection to the habeas corpus petition filed by KUWJ as Kappan has been in judicial custody under the judicial order. He said the habeas corpus petition was not maintainable in the case where an accused is under judicial custody.
Advocate Wills Mathew, appearing for KUWJ, said that on April 20 he fell in the bathroom, and on April 21 he had tested positive for COVID-19.
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It is known that a Habeas corpus petition has been filed in Supreme Court, seeking the release of journalist Siddique Kappan, who's currently undergoing treatment for COVID in a Mathura Hospital.
Earlier, Siddique's wife Raihanth had sought Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan's intervention in providing the journalist much-needed medical help as he continues to be in a critical condition. The journalists' union from Kerala, too, had approached the chief minister in this regard.
"It has been brought to my attention by the Kerala Union of Working Journalists and some of the prominent media persons of national repute that Shri Siddique (Siddique) Kappan, a journalist from Kerala presently in custody under Unlawful Activities Protection Act (UAPA) in Mathura, UP, is facing severe health problems," Kerala CM Pinarayi mentioned in a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking his intervention in the case.
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Kappan was detained on his way to Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, for covering the alleged rape and murder of a minor girl. Since then, he has been languishing in jail. He was booked under the stringent UAPA.
According to the Uttar Pradesh government, Kappan had lied about the organization he represented. It also accused him of having received funds from international sources and of not cooperating with the investigation.
However, Kappan had rebutted these claims in court saying that he was 'tortured, slapped, and beaten with lathis'.
(With inputs from PTI)
