A journalist, facing trial under the Officials Secrets Act for allegedly procuring documents and uploading them on a news portal, has been sent to jail by a Delhi court which cancelled his bail granted earlier saying he was "intentionally delaying" the proceedings.
Mathew Samuel, who worked with news portal tehelka.Com, was sent to judicial custody till November 21 by special CBI judge J P S Malik who said there was no justification in releasing him on bail again.
"From the conduct of the applicant/accused no.3 (Samuel), it is clear that he is intentionally delaying the proceedings. No justification to release accused Mathew Samuel on bail, again.
"Application for bail moved by him is dismissed. Accused is taken into custody and remanded to judicial custody till November 21, 2014," the court said.
Samuel, who was earlier granted bail, was produced in the court by police in pursuance to the arrest warrant issued against him on October 13.
He sought bail submitting that he could not appear in the court on the last date of hearing as he was advised to take bed rest after a surgery. He said that his counsel was also not keeping well on October 13 when the matter was listed for hearing.
The court was recording prosecution evidence in the case in which the CBI has filed charge sheet against Samuel and the then Tehelka editor (Investigations) Aniruddh Bahal, two of the then home ministry officials Thomas Mathew and Neeraj Kumar, and Buffalo Networks, which owned the website, for alleged violation of the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
The Delhi High Court had in May quashed charges against Bahal, Thomas and Kumar.
Samuel's plea seeking quashing of the trial court order framing charges against him for allegedly hatching a criminal conspiracy with government officials to obtain secret papers in 2000 is pending before the high court.
The trial court has fixed November 21 for recording of statements of prosecution witnesses in the case.
CBI had alleged that Kumar, Thomas, Bahal and Samuel entered into a criminal conspiracy to obtain secret documents, which were exhibited on tehelka.Com on October 9, 2000.
