The Supreme Court on Monday asked activist Gautam Navlakha to respond in two weeks to a petition moved by the Maharashtra government against a Delhi High Court order to set aside his transit remand in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case and release him from house arrest.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi heard senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi for the State, who questioned how a plea for habaeas corpus could be filed when the Supreme Court had ordered Mr. Navalakha’s house arrest.
“Personal liberty is involved here,” Chief Justice Gogoi said.
The Delhi High Court had released Mr. Navlakha from house arrest on October 1. It quashed a Magistrate court order granting transit remand to the Maharashtra police to transfer him to Pune.
Seeking a stay of the October 1 order, the State has contended that the High Court erred in releasing Mr. Navlakha on the basis of habeas corpus petition filed by him. The government argued that a habeas corpus petition would not lie in a case where the arrest and remand was based on an order of a court of law.
Besides, the State pointed out that there was no prayer made in the High Court to set aside the transit remand.
The Mahrashtra government contended that there was no need to end Mr. Navlakha’s house arrest when the Supreme Court had already extended it for four weeks in its judgment on September 28.
The majority opinion in the Supreme Court verdict had dismissed the writ petition filed by noted historian Romila Thapar and four others that the arrests of poet Vara Vara Rao, lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, activists Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Mr. Navlakha was an attempt to silence dissenting voices in the country.
The court had also rejected the plea for a Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations against the five arrested activists.
In a strong dissent, the third member of the Bench, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had lashed out at the Maharashtra Police for prejudicing the investigation and besmirching the reputations of the accused persons. Justice Chandrachud said the conduct of the Maharashtra Police does not encourage the thought that they will conduct a fair and impartial probe.
The State government argued that the High Court was wrong to dismiss the transit remand order of the Magistrate, saying there was no application of mind. In fact, the State countered, the Magistrate had paid “thoughtful consideration” to the submissions made by the police.
The State also countered the High Court’s conclusion that the Magistrate issued the transit remand without going through the case diary.
“In the case in hand, the police arrested five persons from different places in the country. It was, therefore, not expected and not possible to produce the case diary before the courts concerned,” the petition said.
