The Bombay High Court has granted bail to activist Gautam Navlakha, who was arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case in 2018. He has been living under house arrest because of his health issues. The National Investigation Agency urged the court to suspend the order for six weeks to that it can file an appeal in the Supreme Court. The court gave three weeks to the agency.
Gautam Navlakha was arrested in August 2018. In November last year, the top court allowed him to be put under house arrest in Navi Mumbai.
According to PTI, the high court granted bail to Navlakha on a surety of ₹1 lakh.
Gautam Adlakha is the seventh accused in the Elgar Parishad case to have received bail.
A special court had refused bail to Navlakha in April, saying he prima facie had links to banned CPI (Maoist).
In his appeal filed in the high court, Navlakha said the special court had erred while refusing bail to him. This is Navlakha's second round of appeal in the high court seeking regular bail. Navlakha had earlier moved the high court after the special NIA court rejected his regular bail plea in September last year.
The NIA had then opposed Navlakha's bail plea, claiming that he had been introduced to a Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) General for his recruitment, which shows his nexus with the organisation. The high court had, however, opined that the reasoning in the order of the special court was cryptic and did not contain analysis of the evidence relied upon by the prosecution's view of this. The high court had ruled that the bail application requires fresh hearing by the special court, and had remanded the case back to the court. It had also directed the special judge to conclude the hearing within four weeks.
{{/usCountry}}The NIA had then opposed Navlakha's bail plea, claiming that he had been introduced to a Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) General for his recruitment, which shows his nexus with the organisation. The high court had, however, opined that the reasoning in the order of the special court was cryptic and did not contain analysis of the evidence relied upon by the prosecution's view of this. The high court had ruled that the bail application requires fresh hearing by the special court, and had remanded the case back to the court. It had also directed the special judge to conclude the hearing within four weeks.
{{/usCountry}}Accordingly, Navlakha had moved the special court for re-hearing his case for regular bail. The special court had then re-heard the plea on the same pleadings and rejected the bail plea prompting the present appeal. The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017 which the police claim triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.
With inputs from PTI