Delhi HC Order on NewsClick a Validation of Press Freedom: IWPC, Press Association

New Delhi: The Indian Women’s Press Corp and the Press Association, in a joint statement, welcome the Delhi High Court’s order on the NewsClick case, quashing the FIR and ECIR by the Delhi police and the Enforcement Directorate, respectively.

“The arbitrary and targeted actions by the enforcement agencies to prevent journalists from doing their job in public interest sends a chilling effect. This does not bode well for any democracy.

Therefore, we view the court order as a validation of press freedom and heartily welcome the High Court judgement,” said the joint statement.

Read the full statement below:

JOINT PRESS STATEMENT

We, the undersigned journalist organizations welcome the order of the Delhi High Court that has quashed the FIR registered by the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) against Newsclick, an independent digital news portal.

In August 2020, acting on a complaint forwarded by the I & B Ministry, the EOW filed an FIR over allegations of illegal foreign funding against NewsClick. 

Following this, in September 2020, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) slapped a case against news portal under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Six years later, on May 29, 2026 in its judgement the Delhi High Court quashed the FIR filed by EOW holding that the case disclosed no cognisable offense under IPC, apart from 'bald assertions of there being a criminal conspiracy'.

Delivering the verdict, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna stated that the continuation of the FIR registered by the Delhi Police’s EOW was “mala fide' and nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law”.

At the same time, the High Court quashed the ED’s case of money laundering noting that it was founded on the same allegations that formed the basis of the FIR filed by Delhi Police.

The reasoning was clear-cut. Once the predicate offence itself stood quashed, the case registered by the ED under PMLA also was quashed.

The Court did not mince its words stating that the ED proceedings were “not only mala fide, but also an arbitrary attack and abuse of powers on the free and impartial journalism of the petitioners.”

The six years between the lodging of the FIR, the filing of the PMLA case till the present HC judgement has weighed heavily on those directly impacted by the Delhi Police and ED action. Reporters, consultants, editors and contributors associated with NewsClick were questioned, their premises raided, their electronic/digital devices seized. The founder, veteran journalist Prabir Purkayastha was arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), India’s primary counter-terrorism law.

The trajectory points to a rot within the system. A thriving, vibrant news portal that complied with the law of the land has been subject to an unprovoked, relentless attack on its very existence. It was compelled to drastically downsize, even shut down its operations.

This necessarily needs to be seen not as an attack on one portal alone but an attack on the Fourth Estate as such especially the independent media.

The arbitrary and targeted actions by the enforcement agencies to prevent journalists from doing their job in public interest sends a chilling effect. This does not bode well for any democracy.

Therefore, we view the court order as a validation of press freedom and heartily welcome the High Court judgement.

Sujata Raghavan, President, IWPC

 C.K.Nayak, President, Press Association

 Saroj Dhuliya, General Secretary, IWPC