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‘Elgar Parishad accused’s plea intends to stall fight against Maoist plague’
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), in its affidavit filed against the petition filed by Elgar Parishad case accused Surendra Gadling and Sudhir Dhawale, has informed the Bombay high court (HC) that their plea is an exercise to impede and stall investigation that has been initiated to unearth the “Maoist plague”, which the agency is fighting in the country
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), in its affidavit filed against the petition filed by Elgar Parishad case accused Surendra Gadling and Sudhir Dhawale, has informed the Bombay high court (HC) that their plea is an exercise to impede and stall investigation that has been initiated to unearth the “Maoist plague”, which the agency is fighting in the country.
The affidavit has also stated that the submission in the petition that the transfer of the probe from Pune Police to NIA would lead to the agency indulging in procuring false and fabricated evidence against the petitioner and other accused was a reckless one and made with the sole purpose of misleading HC.
NIA has also submitted that as the accused are booked under scheduled offences, investigation can be taken over by the central agencies from state investigators at any point of time.
The affidavit, which was submitted before the bench of justice SS Shinde and justice NJ Jamadar, stated that in view of the gravity of offence and the inter-state link having implications on national security, the Central government has taken a suo motu decision to direct NIA to take up the probe into the case.
The Pune Police, in its first information report (FIR) had alleged criminal conspiracy linked to banned organisation CPI (Maoist). The case was transferred to NIA on January 24, 2020.
While arguing for the accused, advocate Satish Talekar stated that there were no compelling reasons for the transfer of the case to NIA after two years of registration of FIR and that there was no provision which empowered the Centre to transfer the probe after it had been completed and trial was set to commence.
Talekar stated that the case was transferred due to mala fide and political expediency soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was ousted from power in the state and the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi coalition proposed to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the matter.
In its affidavit, the Central agency has stated, “...The petitioners had gone to the extent of scandalising and questioning the credibility of NIA, which is fighting for the prevention of unlawful and terrorist activities in the country in which the Maoist plague has caused destruction at many levels.”
The agency further said that the action taken against the accused was “solely based on incriminating material evidence” showing their involvement in the case and any commission of scheduled offences requires investigation from NIA and therefore the transfer of probe was justified.
“By trying to cast mala fide against NIA, the petitioners raised a direct attack on the criminal justice system. The petitioners and the other accused in this case have made it a tradition to file writ petitions, public interest litigations (PIL) directly or through others, particularly when the investigation is in progress,” the affidavit stated, adding that such an exercise was nothing but “sheer abuse of due process of law”.
HC is likely to hear the plea next on July 19.
