The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear Maharashtra’s special leave petition challenging a Bombay High Court decision refusing the State police a further extension of 90 days to complete its investigation and file a chargesheet against lawyer Surendra Gadling and four others, who have been in detention since June after having been accused of Maoist links in the aftermath of the Bhima-Koregaon violence.
The High Court’s October 24 order opened the window for Mr. Gadling, Nagpur University Professor Shoma Sen, activists Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut and Rona Wilson to seek default bail.
The Pune police had on June 6 arrested the five and registered cases against them under various provisions of The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code.
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“The police started the investigation but could not complete the same,” the Maharashtra government said in its petition filed by State counsel Nishant Katneshwarkar in the apex court. “On September 3, 90 days were completed since the date of arrest of the respondents.”
Mr. Katneshwarkar mentioned the plea before the Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.
In its petition, the Maharashtra government has contended that under Section 43-D (2) of the UAPA Act, the trial court may, on the report of the public prosecutor, extend the detention of the accused for a further period of 90 days.
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On September 2, the trial court had granted an extension of 90 days, following which Mr. Gadling and the others had approached the High Court, which had in turn set aside the trial court’s order. However, the High Court had stayed its order till November 1 to give the State time to move the Supreme Court.
The State government argued that the High Court had resorted to a “pedantic view rather than resorting to a pragmatic view”. The High Court had concluded that the report for the 90-day extension of detention was filed before the sessions judge by the case investigating officer instead of the public prosecutor as required by law.
“The public prosecutor, by way of abundant precaution, took signature of the investigating officer. But the High Court was carried away by the fact of signature of the investigating officer and arrived at a conclusion that the report/application was not by the public prosecutor,” the State government contended in the special leave petition.
The State submitted that the High Court was “carried away” by a reference made by the sessions judge that the application for extension was “filed by investigating officer”.
“It appears that the more the State took precaution to file the report/application for extension of time to complete the investigation, the more the High Court considered it as improper and thereby passed the impugned order,” the State averred in its plea to the Supreme Court.