SC allows Pune police to continue activists’ probe

...the consistent view of this Court is that the accused cannot ask for changing the Investigating Agency or to do investigation in a particular manner including for Court monitored investigation...

NEW DELHI: Refusing to interfere with the investigation into the arrest of five activists in connection with the Bhima-koregaon incident by the Pune police, the Supreme Court of India on Friday allowed the process to continue, although it provided a way out for the activists by extending their house arrest by four more weeks, allowing them to move bail applications in this time (some of them already have).

In a 2:1 majority verdict, the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra dismissed the petition filed by historian Romila Thapar and four others seeking the release of Gautam Navalakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves and also the appointment of a Special Investigation Team. CJI DIPAK MISRA and JUSTICE AM KHANWILKAR in majority order

The top court held that the accused persons do not have a say “to choose as to which Investigating Agency must investigate the offence committed by them”.

In a pan-india crackdown on August 28, the activists were arrested for suspected Maoist links. The raids were a part of a probe into a conclave, Elgar Parishad , held in Bhima Koregaon near Pune on December 31, 2017 that allegedly triggered violence the following day.

But dissenting with the two judges, Justice DY Chandrachud held that there was a need to constitute a SIT and hand over investigation to it.

“Circumstances have been drawn to our notice to cast a cloud on whether the Maharashtra police has in the present case acted as fair and impartial investigating agency. Sufficient material has been placed before the Court bearing on the need to have an independent investigation,” he added.

The majority judgment said the police is free to go ahead with investigations and “it is not a case of arrest because of mere dissenting views expressed or difference in the political ideology of the named accused, but concerning their link with the members of the banned organisation and its activities”.