NIA HANDED OVER ELGAR PARISHAD CASE AS IT’S LINKED TO NATIONAL SECURITY, HC TOLD

MUMBAI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) told the Bombay high court on Tuesday that the Centre suo motu (on its own) decided to transfer the probe into the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case from the Pune Police to the central agency as it had implications on national security.

The agency also said its credibility is being questioned while it is fighting for the prevention of unlawful and terrorist activities in the country, in which “Naxal plague” has caused destruction at many levels.

It further said that while considerable autonomy and functional prerogatives have been accorded to state governments, greater powers and prerogatives over a complex range of all-encompassing subjects are vested with the Union government. The central agency submitted its affidavit in the HC in response to a petition filed by human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling and activist Surendra Dhawale, arrested in the case, challenging the January 2020 decision of the Union government to transfer the probe into the case from the Pune Police in Maharashtra to NIA. The petition, filed through advocate SB Talekar in 2020, alleged that the case was transferred by the central government after the BJP lost power in Maharashtra and hence, the decision was “politically motivated”.

On Tuesday, Talekar told a division bench of justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar that the probe into the case was transferred to NIA two years after the FIR was registered.

He submitted to the court that NIA had filed an affidavit in the case, but the Centre and the Maharashtra government were yet to file their affidavits.