Elgar Parishad Case: No interim protection from arrest to Navlakha

The special court also said the documents seized from the house search of some of the accused revealed a ‘deep-rooted conspiracy of extremely serious repercussions and the applicant (Navlakha) was a party to the said conspiracy’.

The Bombay high court (HC) on Thursday refused to grant interim protection from arrest to activist Gautam Navlakha in the Elgar Parishad case. The activist approached the HC a day after a special UAPA court in Pune rejected his anticipatory bail plea on November 12. Justice PD Naik will continue hearing the plea on Friday.

Gautam Navlakha’s lawyer said there was absolutely no material to link the journalist-cum-writer with the crimes and inadmissible electronic data was being portrayed as evidence. (AP Photo)

The Vishrambaug police station registered an offence on January 8, 2018, on the basis of a complaint lodged by a builder, Tushar Damgude. He alleged that members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Kabir Kala Manch spread hatred through provocative songs, plays and speeches delivered at Elgar Parishad at Shaniwarwada on December 31, 2017, which led to violence following the incident at Bhima-Koregaon. The police later conducted searches at residences of various activists and recovered a document, ‘Strategy and Tactics of The Indian Revolution’, which allegedly stated the motive of the banned terrorist organisation, CPI (Maoist), was to seize political power by organising people into an army and wiping out Indian armed forces through war and establish “people’s democratic state”.

Navlakha’s lawyer said there was absolutely no material to link the journalist-cum-writer with the crimes and inadmissible electronic data was being portrayed as evidence. A pre-arrest bail was sought for him claiming that he was “against Naxalite activities and was a peace activist”.

The special court at Pune, however, rejected his anticipatory bail plea noting that the prosecution had sufficient material to show that Navlakha was “not only a member of the banned organisation, but an active leader”. “Prima facie, it can be noted that organisation of Elgar Parishad at Pune was part of the larger conspiracy of the banned organisation, and the Bhima-Koregaon episode is one of the instances of the execution of the said conspiracy,” said the judge.

The special court also said the documents seized from the house search of some of the accused revealed a “deep-rooted conspiracy of extremely serious repercussions and the applicant (Navlakha) was a party to the said conspiracy”.