ELGAR PARISHAD CASE HANDED TO NIA AS IT PERTAINS TO NATIONAL SECURITY: AGENCY

MUMBAI: The NIA told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that the Centre suo motu (on its own) decided to transfer the probe into the Elgar Parishadmaoist links case from Pune police to the central agency as it had implications on national security.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) 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 claimed 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 the NIA.

The petition, filed through advocate S B 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 S S Shinde and N J Jamadar that the probe into the case was transferred to the NIA two years after the FIR was registered.