ED moves Supreme Court against NewsClick case order

The Enforcement Directorate has moved the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court order quashing the case against NewsClick and its editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha. The agency filed its plea against the High Court judgment dated 29 May 2026. The matter is yet to be listed for hearing, and the Supreme Court has not passed any order on it yet.

The High Court judgment, delivered by Justice Neena Bansal Krishna, quashed a first information report registered by the Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing and set aside the Enforcement Directorate enforcement case information report in the matter. The High Court said the continuation of the FIR was nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law. Once the FIR under the predicate offence was quashed, the High Court held, the proceedings built on it could not survive.

The Economic Offences Wing FIR, registered in 2020, alleged that PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd, the parent company of NewsClick, received foreign direct investment of Rs 9.59 crore from Worldwide Media Holdings LLC of the United States during 2018-19. The FIR claimed the investment violated foreign investment law, that shares were greatly overvalued to avoid the 26 per cent cap on foreign direct investment in a digital news website, and that over 45 per cent of the investment was diverted as salary, consultation fees, rent, and other payments for ulterior motives. PPK Newsclick Studio sought quashing of the FIR, saying it was replete with vague allegations.

Why the Delhi High Court quashed the NewsClick case

The High Court held that the material on record did not establish cheating or criminal breach of trust. It found that the essential ingredients of cheating and criminal conspiracy under Sections 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code were not made out. The investment was a commercial decision, the court said, and the investor had not complained. Online news was outside print media foreign investment limits at the relevant time, the court noted.

The High Court also observed that the fact of share valuation and the expenditure of the company did not, by themselves, establish criminal wrongdoing. The court said that merely because parties entered into an agreement, that alone did not amount to criminal conspiracy, unless the agency could show an illegal objective or illegal means. On that reasoning, the court quashed the FIR and the connected case against NewsClick, Purkayastha, and others.

The agency subsequently registered a case against NewsClick, Purkayastha, and others, treating the offences alleged in the FIR as predicate offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The order closed both tracks, ending the money laundering proceedings for now. Reports of the Supreme Court filing said the agency contends that the High Court quashed its enforcement case information report without examining the PMLA case, and that there was an inordinate delay of five months in the pronouncement of the judgment.

What the agency argues in the NewsClick appeal

The agency argues that the High Court overlooked material evidence and conducted a mini-trial at the stage of a writ petition. The agency says the court failed to consider emails, statements, and other material that, in its submission, showed the funding arrangements were pre-planned. It also contends that the court relied heavily on material placed by PPK Newsclick without adequately considering the evidence placed by the agency and the police.

The agency has also argued that the High Court exceeded its jurisdiction by deciding disputed facts at a preliminary stage, and that its reading of cheating was wrong in law. The plea asks the Supreme Court to decide whether an Enforcement Directorate enforcement record can continue after the predicate FIR is quashed, and to test the limits of early judicial fact-finding in such cases.

The proceedings quashed by the High Court are separate from another case against NewsClick and Purkayastha. A case registered by the Delhi Police Special Cell under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, over allegations relating to foreign funding and a purported conspiracy, is independent of the Economic Offences Wing FIR and the proceedings. That case is not the subject of the present appeal.

The Supreme Court will first decide whether to admit the petition for hearing. No hearing date has been reported. The Delhi High Court order stands unless the Supreme Court stays or sets it aside, and the agency PMLA case remains closed for now.