Court cancels journalist's bail in Official Secrets Act case

A court here cancelled the bail of a journalist, facing trial under the Officials Secrets Act for allegedly procuring documents and uploading them on a news portal, and sent him to jail.

The Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge J.P.S. Malik sent Mathew Samuel, who worked with a news portal, to judicial custody till Nov 21.

"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," the court said.

"Application for bail moved by him is dismissed. Accused is taken into custody and remanded to judicial custody till Nov 21," the court said in a Nov 10 order that was made available Tuesday.

Samuel had sought bail submitting that he could not appear in the court on the last date of hearing as he had been advised to take bed rest after a surgery. He said that his counsel was also not keeping well Oct 13 when the matter was listed for hearing.

CBI has chargesheeted Samuel with the then Tehelka editor (Investigations) Aniruddh Bahal, and 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).

CBI had alleged that Kumar, Thomas, Bahal and Samuel entered into a criminal conspiracy to obtain secret documents, which were exhibited on a news portal Oct 9, 2000.