Sought legal advice on NIA taking over probe: Maha
MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government was seeking legal opinion on whether the Centre’s decision to transfer the investigation into the Elgar Parishad case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) could be challenged, state home minister Anil Deshmukh said on Wednesday.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Deshmukh held talks after a cabinet meeting, and discussed what stance was to be taken by the government.
“It is true that the Centre has the power under section 6 (5) to transfer the investigation to NIA, but it is expected to have acted reasonably. We are checking if we can claim that the Centre’s act of transferring the investigation [which was at an advanced stage] can be challenged,” Deshmukh told HT. He said at a press conference that a decision on NIA accessing case documents will be taken after getting a legal opinion. “We have sought the opinion of the advocate-general on the legal option available for the state. Further action will be taken once we get the opinion. The transfer of the case was an arbitrary act by the Centre and it was done without taking us into confidence,” he said. On January 1, 2018, clashes broke out during the bicentennial anniversary of a
British-era war, killing one person and injuring 40. Thousands of Dalits had converged to commemorate the victory of the British army, manned primarily by Dalit soldiers, over the Peshwas, known for oppressive caste practices. The Pune Police – then under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government – blamed an event held in Pune on December 31, 2017, called the Elgar Parishad. The police said the event was funded by Maoists and provocative speeches were made to stoke violence. Elgar is the Marathi word for a clarion call. In June and August that year, police arrested activists Sudha Bhardwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferriera, Vernon Gonsalves, Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhavale, in addition to alleged operatives of Maoist groups.
STATE HOME MINISTER SAY A DECISION ON NIA ACCESSING CASE DOCUMENTS WILL BE TAKEN AFTER GETTING A LEGAL OPINION