The Wire’s Siddharth Varadarajan deliberately hid his bail conditions from High Court? Delhi HC warns of serious consequences, recalls earlier order regarding OCI card

TheWire's Sid Varadarajan hid bail conditions imposed by Allahabad HC from Delhi HC?
The Wire and its founding editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, representational imae

The Delhi High Court on Thursday held that senior journalist and founding editor of Leftist propaganda site ‘The Wire’, Siddharth Varadarajan, was prima facie guilty of suppressing material facts regarding bail conditions imposed on him in his petition seeking conversion of his Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card to an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card.

The court recalled its order passed just two days earlier on May 12, in which Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav had quashed the Central Government’s rejection of Varadarajan’s application. The May 12 order had restored Varadarajan’s application and directed the authorities to pass a fresh ‘reasoned’ decision in his favour. 

However, today the HC noted that Varadarajan had curiously failed to disclose the bail conditions imposed on him, raising questions on his conduct and intentions.

HC noted that Siddharth Varadarajan is prima facie guilty of suppressing material facts regarding bail conditions imposed upon him in his plea seeking OCI card. The Court mentioned that Varadarajan’s deliberate omission of his bail conditions will ‘entail very serious consequences’. Varadarajan has been asked to submit an affidavit explaining his conduct.

An earlier order by the Allahabad High Court had barred Varadarajan from leaving the country without permission from the trial court while the case against him is continuing. ASG Chetan Sharma, appearing for the Union Government, informed the Delhi HC about the serious omission.

But Varadarajan did not mention this fact when he was challenging the Ministry of Home Affairs’ decision to reject his application to convert his Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card into an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card earlier in April. Varadarajan’s PIO card had become non-machine-readable after the government of India merged the PIO and OCI schemes in 2015.

Written by OpIndia Staff
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