A court in Ernakulam granted bail to Shajan Skariah, the founder and editor of Malayalam online news portal Marunadan Malayali, hours after he was arrested by the Thrikkakara police in a forgery case on Saturday, August 26. Shajan had appeared at the Nilambur police station in compliance with a High Court order on Saturday morning, in a case where he was accused of sowing communal disharmony, when he was picked up by the Thrikkakara police out of the blue and taken to Ernakulam. The court, however, condemned the move by the Thrikkakara police, and criticised the investigating officer for acting in haste. “This is not a very serious offence which require(s) urgent arrest of the accused,” it said.
Additional Sessions Judge (Vacation Court) PK Mohandas noted in his order that when accused persons appear before the investigating officer as per the direction of the Hon'ble High Court in an application for pre-arrest bail, he will be under the expectation that in the case of his arrest, he will be released on bail. “He appears before the investigating officer in good faith that he has got protection of the order of the Hon'ble High Court. Arresting a person while he is proceeding to the police station or on his surrender before the police, on the basis of a court order in connection with another case, is nothing but making the court procedures a mockery. It is really a clear abuse of the process of the law,” the judge added.
Shajan has been accused of forging a BSNL telephone bill and producing it before the Kerala Registrar of Companies, with an intention to obtain registration for the company ‘Tiding Digital Publications Pvt Ltd’. As a grievance in this regard was sent to the Chief Minister’s office, which was in turn forwarded to Thrikkakara, the Thrikkakara police sent a shadow police on Saturday to Nilambur to arrest Shajan. Many Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were also present at the Nilambur station while Thrikkakara police recorded Shajan’s arrest. He had appeared before the Nilambur Station House Officer (SHO) after the Kerala HC pulled him up for not complying with the police order to appear for questioning for many weeks.
In July 2023, Shajan was granted relief from the Supreme Court in a case under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, where he was accused of making derogatory remarks on his online platform against a CPI(M) legislator PV Sreenijin. Sreenijin is the son-in-law of retired Supreme Court Chief Justice K. Balakrishnan. While hearing Shajan’s petition, Chief Justice of India DV Chandrachud had stated that while Shajan’s statements may be defamatory, they were not offences under the SC/ST Act. “He may have said something against the father-in-law (of the complaint), judiciary etc., which may be in bad taste,” he said.