Elgar Parishad case: HC dismisses Navlakha's bail appeal

The Bombay High Court on Mondaydismissed activist Gautam Navlakha's appeal seeking bail inthe Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, saying it sees no reasonto interfere with a special court's order which earlierrejected his bail plea.

According to police, some activists allegedly madeinflammatory speeches and provocative statements at the ElgarParishad meet in Pune on December 31, 2017, which triggeredviolence at Koregaon Bhima in the district the next day.

The police have also alleged that the event was backedby some Maoist groups.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is conductinga probe into the case.

A bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik onMonday said it had gone through a special NIA court's order oflast year rejecting Navlakha's bail plea, and that it saw ''noreason to interfere'' with the order.

Navlakha approached the HC last year, challenging thespecial NIA court's order of July 12, 2020 that rejected hisplea for statutory bail.

On December 16 last year, the HC bench reserved itsverdict on the plea filed by Navlakha, seeking statutory ordefault bail on the ground that he had been in custody forover 90 days, but the prosecution failed to file a chargesheet in the case within this period.

The NIA had argued that his plea was not maintainable,and sought an extension to file the charge sheet.

The special court had then accepted NIA's plea seekingextension of 90 to 180 days to file the charge sheet againstNavlakha and his co-accused, activist Dr Anand Teltumbde.

Navlakha's counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, hadtold the HC that the NIA was granted the extension to fileits charge sheet.

Sibal said Navlakha had already spent 93 days incustody, including 34 days of house arrest, and that the HCmust count house arrest as a period of custody.

While he was under house arrest, Navlakha's personalliberties remained curtailed, Sibal had said.

However, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, whoappeared for the NIA, had argued that Navlakha's house arrestcould not be included in the time spent in the custody ofpolice or NIA, or under judicial custody.

Raju argued that the Pune police arrested Navlakha inAugust 2018, but had not taken him into custody.

He said the accused remained under house arrest, andthe Delhi High Court quashed his arrest and remand order inOctober 2018.

The FIR against him was re-registered in January 2020,and Navlakha surrendered before the NIA on April 14.

He spent 11 days in the NIA's custody till April 25,and since then he in judicial custody in the Taloja jail inneighbouring Navi Mumbai.

Raju had argued that if the court ''looked from theother angle, it would see that if he (Navlakha) was arrestedon August 28, 2018, he should have been enlarged on bail.'' ''He was a free man till April 2020. He was neither onbail nor in custody. There cannot be a gap in the custody anddetention period,'' Raju said.