Senior journalist Mahesh Langa, who had challenged the order of a local court granting his 10-day remand to the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) in a case related to large-scale GST fraud in Gujarat, withdrew the petition during the plea hearing on Monday. The special criminal application was being heard in the Gujarat High Court — a bench of Justice Sandeep Bhatt. Langa, the Gujarat Correspondent for The Hindu, had been detained by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on October 7 and placed under arrest on October 8. The petition was filed on October 10 and heard for the first time on October 11 when the court asked the petitioner's counsel, senior advocate Jal Unwala, to provide details of the plea to the office of the public prosecutor, and kept the next hearing for October 14. October 14 marked the fifth day of the 10-day remand of Langa and the three other accused. At the hearing on Monday, Langa’s advocate Vedant Rajguru sought permission to withdraw the quashing petition before the court. The court granted the same. On October 9, when the police sought 14 days’ remand of Langa and three other accused, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate granted 10 days of remand. Notably, with the arrests of four more accused in the GST case on Sunday, the crime branch have now arrested eight persons in the case.
