Prabir Purkayastha, the editor of NewsClick, and Amit Chakraborty, the HR head of the website, have taken legal action by filing a petition in the Delhi High Court. They are challenging their arrest in connection with an alleged case of Chinese funding and are requesting the cancellation of the first information report (FIR) registered against them under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

On Friday morning, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal brought up the matter before Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, requesting an urgent listing of the case. "We are bringing up the NewsClick matter, and we firmly believe that the arrests have been carried out in a completely unlawful manner," stated Sibal.

The court has agreed to schedule the matter for today.

Purkayastha and Chakraborty were apprehended as a result of a sequence of raids that were conducted in response to allegations raised in a New York Times article. The article suggested that NewsClick was receiving payments to promote Chinese propaganda.

In August, a report by The New York Times accused NewsClick of being an organization funded by a network associated with US millionaire Neville Roy Singham, with the alleged purpose of promoting Chinese propaganda.

Both of them  were arrested on October 3 after undergoing extensive questioning and searches at multiple locations. They were subsequently placed in police custody for a period of seven days in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Initially they were not provided with the copy of the FIR. Subsequently they approached a Delhi Court and on Thursday their plea to obtain a copy of the FIR was granted.