A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to freelance journalist Mandeep Punia, whose arrest from the Singhu border on Sunday had been widely seen as part of the Centre’s attempt to cut off the protesting farmers and muzzle the media.

The police had detained Punia, a regular contributor to The Caravan magazine, on Saturday night, saying he had tried to dismantle barricades at Singhu and misbehaved with security personnel.

The court noted that the alleged scuffle took place around 6.30pm on Saturday but the FIR was registered close to seven hours later, at 1.21am the next day.

The chief metropolitan magistrate’s court said “it is a well-settled legal principle of law that ‘bail is a rule and jail is an exception’”. It also pointed out that since the alleged victims and eyewitnesses in the case were police personnel, there was no chance of the journalist influencing them if set free.

Granting bail to Punia on a bond of Rs 25,000, the court said no recovery of evidence was required from the accused and keeping him further in judicial custody would not serve any “cogent purpose”.

Delhi police had on Sunday arrested Punia who had in a Facebook Live session on Friday accused BJP workers of posing as local people and unleashing violence at the farmers’ protest site on the Singhu border.

In his order the chief metropolitan magistrate said: “It is alleged that the accused had pushed Ct. (constable) Rajkumar towards the protesting place, therefore, the police called minimal force to control the situation. Thereafter, the protesters went away backside and the accused/applicant fell in the drain, upon which he was overpowered and arrested.”

“It is pertinent to mention here that the alleged scuffle… (took place) around 6.30pm. However, the present FIR was registered at around 1.21am the next day. Moreover, the complainant, victims and witnesses are police personnel only. Hence, there is no possibility that the accused/applicant can able to influence any of the police officials,” the court added.

In his bail application, Punia had asserted that he was innocent and had been falsely implicated. He had also contended that he was merely carrying out his journalistic duties when he was apprehended by Delhi police. The plea had pointed to the delay of seven hours in filing the FIR.

Opposing the bail application, the public prosecutor had said Punia “may again indulge in instigating the protesters and may create nuisance at the protest site with a group of different people and may hamper the investigation”.

The police had booked Punia under IPC Sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty).

Punia had posted a video on Facebook giving a personal account of the violence at Singhu. He had said mobs chanting anti-farmer slogans had thrown stones at the protesters in the presence of policemen.

A group of 150-200 people had stormed the Singhu protest site on Friday amid heavy security, hurled stones at the farmers and vandalised some of their tents. While members of the mob had claimed to be “local residents”, the farmers had alleged they were BJP supporters.