Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

SC orders status quo on Gopal bail

By J. Venkatesan

New Delhi Sept. 22. The Supreme Court today ordered maintenance of status quo on the release on bail of R.R. Gopal, Editor of Tamil bi-weekly, Nakkheeran, detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and granted bail by the Madras High Court. Mr. Gopal was arrested in a murder case on April 11 and the POTA was invoked on April 16.

A Bench, comprising Justice S.N. Variava and Justice H.K. Sema, passed this order and posted for hearing tomorrow an SLP filed by the Tamil Nadu Government challenging the High Court order of September 19.

(As Mr. Gopal could not complete the formalities of furnishing sureties on Friday, he was not released on bail and today also he could not be released as he was taken to a court in Sathyamangalam in connection with another case).

In the morning, acceding to a request from senior counsel, C.S. Vaidyanathan, a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, V.N. Khare, directed the matter to be posted before Justice Variava and Justice Sema. In the afternoon, Mr. Vaidyanathan submitted before the Bench that Mr. Gopal was closely connected with the forest brigand Veerappan.

Once he was released on bail, Mr. Gopal could not be traced. The High Court had granted bail without calling for the records on the alleged discrepancies. He pleaded for stay of the impugned judgment.

Senior counsel, T.R. Andhyarujina, appearing for Mr. Gopal, submitted that though the journalist was granted bail on Friday, he was not released, and today he had been taken to a place, 400 km from Chennai. He refuted the charge that Mr. Gopal would abscond and said the High Court had imposed stringent bail conditions.

The Bench, however, posted the SLP for hearing tomorrow and ordered status quo in the meanwhile.

The State's SLP submitted that the High Court had erred in relying upon a mere discrepancy in the description of the weapon which was seized from the possession of the accused to come to the conclusion that the accused was not guilty of committing an offence under Section 4 of POTA (possession of arms).

In this case, when the charge sheet had not been filed, the High Court was wrong in not calling for the case diary to ascertain the weapon seized from the accused was the same as incorporated in the seizure mahazar and other relevant records.

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