The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its orders on a plea for bail filed by activist Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon violence case.
A Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit heard the arguments raised by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan and Shadan Farasat for grant of default bail to Mr. Navlakha under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 43(D)(2) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
Mr. Navlakha has challenged the dismissal of his bail plea by the Bombay High Court on February 8. The High Court had upheld the NIA court verdict to deny him bail “despite the petitioner (Navlakha) spending more than 90 days in custody”.
“The main question that arises is whether a period of 34 days when Navlakha was in custody by way of house arrest pursuant to orders of the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court modifying transit remand order dated August 28, 2018 of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, would count as custody for the purpose of default bail,” Mr. Sibal argued.
Mr. Navlakha was under house arrest for a period of 34 days between August 28, 2028 and October 1, 2018 (excluding the last day).
“He was subsequently in police custody for 11 days and judicial custody for 46 days. At this point, he had completed 90 days in custody and was entitled to the indefeasible right to default bail,” Mr. Sibal argued.
The lawyer submitted that Mr. Navlakha had applied for default bail on June 11 last year.
“It is admitted the chargesheet was not filed by the investigating agency nor was any extension for filing chargesheet sought by the Public Prosecutor,” Mr. Sibal submitted.
“If you take all three into account, it is 93 days. We say chargesheet was filed after 90th day and thus Navlakha ought to be released on default bail,” the lawyer argued.
“If we hold that this 34 days of house arrest do not count as ‘custody’, then we can say application for interim extension (to file chargesheet) was within time,” Justice Lalit observed.
Mr. Sibal agreed that then the bail plea would not survive.
“But what prevented the police from approaching the courts and asking for police custody of Navlakha?” Mr. Sibal asked.
The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches and provocative statements made by activists at the Elgar Parishad meet in Pune on December 31, 2017. The prosecution claimed that these speeches led to violence at Koregaon Bhima in the district the next day.
The police have also alleged that the event was backed by Maoist groups.
