The Supreme Court will on Thursday take up the pleas of NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the portal’s human resources head Amit Chakravarty challenging their arrest on October 3 in a case under the anti-terror law.

The matter was listed before a bench of justices BR Gavai and PK Mishra on Wednesday. But it could not be taken up as the judges could not read the case files which reached them late on Tuesday. “Let it be tomorrow,” said Justice Gavai, indicating that Justice Mishra needed time to read the files.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for Purkayastha, urged the court to issue notice to the Delhi Police. But the bench only directed the matter to be posted on Thursday.

The Delhi high court on October 13 dismissed Purkayastha and Chakravarty’s pleas against their arrest. The two moved Supreme Court arguing that their arrest under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) was illegal since they were not provided written grounds for it. They are accused of receiving foreign funds through Chinese firms.

Chakravarty’s lawyer, senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, requested his matter be taken up on Thursday with Purkayastha’s petition.

The two, who are lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, have cited the Supreme Court’s order in the Pankaj Bansal versus Union of India case on October 3 setting aside an arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The court made it mandatory for the Enforcement Directorate to provide grounds of arrest in writing to the accused.

The high court said such a requirement was applicable under PMLA and not UAPA, where the requirement is merely to inform. The two challenged this saying the principle laid down will be applicable to arrest under any law citing Article 22(1) of the Constitution. The article says, “No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest nor shall he be denied the right to consult, and be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice.”

The two have sought a declaration of their arrest and subsequent police custody to be illegal. The high court pulled up the police for not providing the grounds of arrest. But it refused to set aside the arrest over this terming it a procedural infirmity.

The police claimed the news portal received ₹75 crore from a person in China for compromising the country’s integrity. The first information report in the case alleged the accused conspired with a group called Peoples Alliance for Democracy and Secularism to sabotage the 2019 general elections.

Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the police in the high court, said Chinese firms Xiaomi and Vivo routed money into the portal via shell companies.

The Central Bureau of Investigation raided NewsClick’s premises over alleged violations of foreign funding.