Maha govt challenges release of Navlakha
New Delhi, Oct. 3: The Maharashtra government moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday challenging the Delhi high court order allowing Gautam Navlakha, one of the five rights activists arrested in connection with the Koregaon- Bhima case, to be freed from house arrest.
The plea was filed in the apex court registry challenging the Delhi high court order, Nishant Katneshwar, counsel for the Maharashtra government told PTI.
The high court had on Monday freed Navlakha from house arrest, five weeks after he and four other rights activists were arrested in connection with the Koregaon-Bhima violence in Maharashtra.
The Maharashtra government said in the petition that the high court had misread the CrPC while allowing Navlakha to be freed from house arrest.
Granting relief to the 65- year- old activist, the high court had also quashed the trial court’s transit remand order which he had challenged before the matter was taken to the Supreme Court. Navlakha was arrested from the national capital on August 28.
The Maharashtra government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi high court order allowing Gautam Navlakha, one of the five rights activists arrested in connection with the Bhima- Koregaon violence case, to be freed from house arrest.
The assistant commissioner of police, Pune, Shivaji Pawar, has filed this plea in the registry of the Supreme Court via the state government’s counsel Nishant Katneshwar.
Mr Navlakha was under house arrest for five weeks before the Delhi high court allowed a petition to free him on Monday. The high court had not only directed that the activist be freed but had also quashed the trial court’s transit remand order that he had challenged.
The five activists — Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj and Mr Navlakha — were arrested in connection with an FIR lodged following a conclave, Elgaar Parishad, held on December 31 last year that had allegedly triggered violence later at Bhima- Koregaon village in the state.
According to the government’s petition, the high court had misread the ‘ Criminal Procedure Code’ ( CrPC) while allowing Mr Navlakha to be freed from house arrest.
The petition read, “The case in hand depicts misreading
of section 167 ( 1) and ( 2) of the CrPC by the high court while passing the impugned order.” Section 167 ( 1) states that in case an accused is to be produced before the jurisdictional magistrate, it is incumbent upon the police to produce the case diary.
It is contended in the petition that in case the police applies for transit remand before a magistrate having no jurisdiction, it is not necessary for the police to produce the case diary. In the present case, the police arrested five persons from different places in the country. “It was, therefore, not expected and not possible to produce the case diary before the courts concerned,” read the petition.
The plea also claimed that the high court had erred in doubting the procedure of arrest and that the police had followed the procedure while arresting as well as while seeking transit remand.