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Elgar Parishad arrests: Pune court rejects bail pleas of civil rights activists
The Pune Police had arrested these three activists along with two others - poet P Varavara Rao and Gautam Navlakha - on August 28 in connection with the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31. These civil rights activists were charged with inciting violence at Bhima Koregaon the next day as per the investigations done by Pune Police.
Nadeem Inamdar
nadeem.inamdar@htlive.com
A Pune court on Friday rejected bail pleas of prominent civil rights activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves who were arrested by Pune Police on August 28 for their alleged Maoist links and put under house arrest by the Supreme Court (SC).
Following the rejection of their bail pleas, the Pune Police took Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves into custody as their application seeking more time for relief was rejected by the same court later in the evening.
Additional Sessions Judge KD Vadane rejected the bail applications filed by the three activists saying material presented by prosecution prima facie revealed involvement of activists in the case.
“We will appeal against the Sessions Court’s judgement in Bombay High court” said Dhairyasheel Patil, senior counsel representing Gonsalves.
In his order, Judge Vadane said, “At this stage, from material collected by investigating agency, prima facie, it reveals involvement of present applicants. Moreover the investigation is at very crucial stage, therefore, in my view, the present applicants/accused are not entitled to be released on bail. Hence, the applications being devoid of merit, liable to be rejected”
The Pune Police had arrested these three activists along with two others - poet P Varavara Rao and Gautam Navlakha - on August 28 in connection with the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31. These civil rights activists were charged with inciting violence at Bhima Koregaon the next day as per the investigations done by Pune Police.
Referring to conspiracy in the order, Judge Vadane stated: “Since conspiracy is often hatched up in utmost secrecy, it is mostly impossible to prove conspiracy by direct evidence. It has oftener than not been inferred from the acts, statements and conduct of parties to the conspiracy. Thus it is proved that the accused pursued, by their acts, the same object often by the same means, one performing one part of the act and the other another part of the same act so as to complete it with with a view to attainment of the object which they were pursuing, the court is at liberty to draw the inference that they conspired together to effect that object.”
The Supreme Court, on August 29, had put on hold their transit to Pune and directed that they be placed under house arrest at their residences. On September 28, the court, while hearing on their petitions opposing arrests had asked these activists to approach lower courts for relief from the imminent arrest and had given four week’s time for the Pune court to decide on their bail plea.
Among the other two activists, Gautam Navlakha’s arrest was quashed by Delhi High court on October 1 while Telgu poet Varavara Rao approached for bail in the Hyderabad high court. The HC has granted Rao three weeks extension to his house arrest.
The prosecution had argued against the bail of all three Left-leaning activists saying they have “corroborative evidence” against them which establishes their links with the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation. According to the prosecution, Bharadwaj was responsible for “raising funds” and sending recruits from various universities and educational institutes to the forest.
The Sessions court has reserved order on bail pleas of other two activists advocate Surendra Gadling and former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen till November 1.
HC refuses interim relief to Arun Ferreira
The Bombay high court refused to grant interim relief to Arun Ferreira who approached the high court after his bail application was rejected by the Pune session court on Friday. Meanwhile, civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha’s application for quashing of the FIR against him by the Pune police saw the court grant him interim relief from being arrested till November 1, when the matter will come up for hearing.
Another accused, Professor Ashok Teltumbde, who had also filed a plea for quashing of proceedings against him was not so fortunate as the court refused to grant him any interim relief in light of his anticipatory bail being rejected by a lower court.
A division bench of justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre, while hearing the arguments of Navlakha was informed by advocate Dr Yug Choudhary, that investigators had no evidence against his client till five months after the Bhima Koregaon incident. Choudhary argued that Navlakha’s arrest and that of four other activists was based on assumptions by the investigators probing the Elgar Parishad conclave that was held on December 31, 2017 that their speeches in the conclave had resulted in the Bhima Koregaon violence. As the FIR against Navlakha was based on an assumption it should be quashed.
Advocate Mihir Desai appearing for Teltumbde and Ferreira also prayed for interim reliefs for the duo. While Teltumbde has not been arrested yet, Ferreira’s house arrest ended on Friday. As the applications for anticipatory bail and bail respectively had been rejected by a lower court, Desai filed appeals against the lower court orders, restraining the police from arresting both of them.
However, counsel for the state, Aruna Pai, opposed the plea of the trio. Referring to the Supreme Court order that ordered the house arrest of the five activists, she said that the order had indicated that there was enough evidence against them and as the probe by the investigators was still on, the pleas should not be allowed. The activists have been booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (Uapa).
After hearing arguments, the bench while refusing any reliefs to Teltumbde and Ferreira restrained the police from arresting Navlakha and posted the hearing of Navlakha’s plea as well as that of Ferreira and Teltumbde to Thursday, November 1.
Pune Police take custody of activists with alleged maoist links
Hours after a Pune Court rejected the bail pleas of civil rights activists Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Sudha Bharadwaj who were under house arrest, the Pune police took their custody and initiated steps to produce them before a city court by Saturday, officials monitoring the investigations said.
A senior police official said Ferreira and Gonsalves were taken into custody from Thane and Mumbai respectively. Sudha Bharadwaj who was under house arrest in Chhatisgarh was taken into custody by another team.
Earlier in the day, additional sessions judge KD Vadane rejected the bail pleas of Bharadwaj, Ferreira and Gonsalves, three of the five activists who were arrested by Pune police for their alleged maoist links and also refused to grant them any relief by staying their arrest to enable them to approach the High Court.
“These activists were already arrested by the police although the Supreme Court had offered them relief saying that they be kept under house arrest for four weeks. Now that the Pune court has given its ruling, we will go ahead and produce them before the court to seek their police custody,” said Joint Commissioner of Police Shivaji Bodkhe.
In the case of the other two activists, Gautam Navlakha’s arrest was quashed by Delhi High court previously while poet Varavara Rao had approached the Hyderabad High Court for bail.
Soon after the five activists were arrested by Pune police on August 28, the Supreme Court had intervened and directed that they be kept under house arrest at their residences and granted four weeks for the Pune court to decide on the bail plea by activists.
Bodkhe said today’s court order has vindicated the police action. “The material presented by Police in the court has been taken into account. With this order, relief granted by Supreme Court to the activists is over,” said Bodkhe.
In his order, Judge Vadane said, “At this stage, from material collected by investigating agency, prima facie, it reveals involvement of present applicants. Moreover, the investigation is at very crucial stage, therefore, in my view, the present applicants/accused are not entitled to be released on bail. Hence the applications being devoid of merit, liable to be rejected”
